Last Dream::
by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a
Summary: K:S Higurashi Kagome, 18 yeared old student suddenly finds herself the guardian of the fated Wish Granting Pearl. Now as miko of her shrine she is honourbound to help everyone in need. And who more in need of aid than a Youkai Lord from the Sengoku Jidai?
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

999

:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

999

Chapter 1:

:Hajimaru:

-Tokyo City. Higurashi Shrine...9.30 a.m.-

The sun of that particular summer's morning beat down warmly on the young woman's back as she knelt in front of the altar. She was kneeling perfectly straight and completely still. Her eyes were closed and her hands were entwined in front of her in the ancient Shinto praying position.

Through the open shoji screens penetrated the outside sounds. The hum of birds and the bustle of metropolitan Tokyo resonated in the empty silence of the shrine, yet the young woman paid them no heed.

Nothing seemed to reach her. Nothing could disrupt the absolute concentration and peace that enveloped her as she honored her ancestors on that fine mid-summer's morning.

Suddenly, a creak. The moan of the paneled floor was heard as feet stood over them to her right. The footsteps were soft and measured, as if the intruder did not desire to be caught just yet. Quietly they glided round the darkened interior of the shrine, and surrounding the young woman that kneeled at it's center.

The girl fidgeted.

More quiet steps. The rustle of fabric, the ghost murmur of a prayer.

The girl's left eye twitched.

"Grandpa..." she muttered through gritted teeth. "_What_ are you doing?"

Her eyes opened half-lidded, to find her vision obstructed by a piece of rectangular paper hanging from her forehead.

"Ne, Kagome-chan," an elderly voice intoned from somewhere to her right. " I'm protecting the life of my only granddaughter with these Sacred Ofudas, of course." Here again the soft rustle of fabric was heard as the old man moved about, purposefully sticking little rectangular papers round -and over- the girl, forming a somewhat shaky´ pentagram. "Do not worry child, I'll ensure that you do not abandon this mortal body of yours when you encounter the flooding currents of the Nether World!"

The old man said this with such passion, such unquestionable certainty that, were the spectator someone else beside his granddaughter, he'd never question the man's outstanding conviction and dedication.

Kagome, however, knew better.

Left eye twitching more noticeable now, she parted her lips as air was inhaled...before the explosion. "_Okaa-san!_ Jii-chans doing it again!"

The girl's words seemed to echo and reverberate throughout the entire household, beyond the wooden walls of the Shrine and far out to the cobbled garden.

A moment's silence followed, in which the elder man scowled his decade's old features at his granddaughter's brashness and apparent unapreciation of his selfless worry for her well-being. Suddenly, or as if on cue, soft padding was heard behind them coming through the paneled corridors, approaching the scene.

"Tou-san," a woman said appearing at the doorway "I told you to leave Kagome-chan alone when she's meditating," said woman reprimanded as she stood wiping her wet hands on her apron at the entrance of the shrine. She was young, probably in her mid-thirties. Of slim complexion and not very tall, she portrayed the typical Japanese shufu. Her hair was short, chocolate brown, kept neatly pinned at the base of her head. She was wearing a simple, grape coloured blouse and a knee-length light brown skirt. A frilly white and pink apron completed her attire.

"Now now, my daughter, you know perfectly well that the safety of our Kagome-chan here is of primal importance," he crossed his arms and nodded to emphasize his words. "You cannot understand how perilous are the Lands Beyond! It is my responsibility as Head of this House to ensure my beloved Kagome-chans safety as she wanders in her meditation the Realms of the Dead."

The other two occupants of the scene sighed.

Kagome shook her head and began muttering sourly about obsessed old people as she plucked, one by one, the twenty something ofudas her grandfather had deemed necessary to glue all over her.

"Tou-san, she was only saying her morning prayers, ne Kagome-chan?"

More grumbling was the only answer the woman received from her daughter.

The woman walked forward and kneeled next to her. Softly, she helped Kagome pluck off the ones sticking on the back of her head.

"Ajajajaja," a youthful laughter came from the parted shoji screens "Jii-chans been trying to keep you on Earth again, nee-chan!"

"Oh, shut up Souta!" Kagome answered bitterly without turning to face the newcomer on this parade that was her typical day: her 14 yeared-old brother. "This isn't funny! Mou, kaa-san... they won't come off," the girl said, pulling the one that was glued to her forehead for emphasis´ sake.

"Mmm...perhaps if we try with that glue-and-paint solvent I bought the other day..."

"No, no Kagome-chan! Let the Protecting Charms on! That way no demon will dare approach you," argued the old man.

"Yeah, and no other human being either!" said Souta, smirking.

"Y….es, I suppose they wouldn't. But that is good, too. My granddaughter is the descendant of the powerful Midoriko-redi, she must remain untainted by the hands of greedy mortals or lustful males who beseech only her body for--"

Kagome blushed and, closing her eyes, she covered her ears, trying to shut the sound of her grandpa's voice. _It's so embarrassing...Why does he have to keep on babbling about that!_´

"--and I will ensure with my own spiritual energy that she remains thus pure. She is, after all, descendant of a line of mikos and priests, the guardians of the fated Shikon Pearl!" The old man said, with the air of a professional imparting his expertise to an ungrateful posterity. In other words...

"I think we lost him, okaa-san" muttered Souta.

"Souta-kun, don't so disrespectful to your grandfather," replied the woman calmly. Then, turning, she fixed her eyes on her daughter, who was currently standing up, and dusting her white chihaya off. "Kagome-chan, please don't forget today you must visit the governmental Council. Tatakai-san has explicitly requested for your presence."

Kagome sighed and, turning to face her mother, smiled. She now stood at the shrine's entrance. The morning sun streaked tendrils of silver and white in her black hair, enhancing the soft paleness of her ivory skin. The picture was almost perfect...

"Hai, kaa-san. I'll go change now."

...where it not that she still sported the ofuda firmly planted on her face.

"Ehmm... Kagome dear?"

"Hai?"

"Don't forget to grab that solvent I told you about."

999

Two hours later, and Kagome was ready to face the day.

She yawned loudly and turned to descend the 104 steps that separated her house, the Higurashi Shrine to the Moon God, and the side walk.

Once down, she straightened her back and stretched her arms high above her head, walking away.

Higurashi Kagome was a simple, 18 yeared-old student at a typical Tokyo High School. She did not posses great sporting abilities, nor the supernatural power to change the course of the future...nor great grades either, but she survived quite happily with her fairly normal life. _Fairly_, that is, because Higurashi Kagome was also a miko. An onmyouji miko, more precisely, and the guardian of the legendary Shikon no Tama, the Wish Granting Pearl.

The Higurashi Household had been the possessors of the fated Pearl for over 500 years now, or at least, that is what legend says. Her ancestors, mikos and priests alike, had faithfully guarded it from coveting hands, for the Pearl was very powerful and, in the wrong hands... Well, no one was quite sure what could _truly_ happen if it fell in the hands of the bad guys but legend supposes it's _bad_. And so, for centuries on end the Shikon no Tama had remained shut and sealed from the eyes of the world in the central pagoda of her house. Ten spells and countless wards kept it safe and locked in the depths of the Kami-dana to the Moon God...in Kagomes backyard.

But also, besides being protectors to a supposedly power-granting piece of jewelry from the Warring Era of Japan, the Higurashis were mediums of the spiritual world. This, too, had been in the past "when demons and spirits had ran rampant on the surface of the Earth, reigning with a fist of steel and accosting the innocent minds of humans", her grandfather would say.

Yes, the Higurashis had been a famous line of spell-casting onmyoujis on the times when the world had been an earthly Hell full of demons, ghouls, mononokes and no plumbing whatsoever.

Time had passed though, and it seemed that the mythical power her family tree had once held had slowly died away for she knew with complete certainty that nor her mother, nor brother, nor aunts or uncles and _most_ especially her Grandpa possessed _any_ sort of spiritual ability.

That is, until she turned 16, of course. On that autumn day, while the sun had set in the far horizon wrapped in fire and the maple trees on the island of Okinawa had shed their ragged leaves the colour of sand, she had been attacked by a centipede youkai lady in the well house that resided to a side in her home.

Her wuss of a brother had been too scared to enter alone in search for their lost family pet, so he'd asked her to do it instead. Shrugging, she'd gone in calling the calico's name and cursing the void-like quality of the lighting in the shed. After much stomping, bumping, and fallings, Kagomed raised her hands to the air, Buyo the Fat Cat tightly held between them. And there is when her life as she'd known it did a literal poof´ and disappeared.

The well at her back had glowed yellow and silver, and from it's dusty depths a beautiful woman's head had emerged. Beautiful until one saw the rest of her. Half human and half centipede, the youkai lady had launched, two sets of arms outstretched towards the unsuspecting average high school student. Grabbing her in a fierce hug, she'd dragged Kagome down the well and into the watery essence of space-time while chanting something on the lines of "The Shikon...give me the Shikon Pearl, child!". The lady had wound one arm around her mid section and had scratched her tummy with long fingernails, poking, prodding, as if looking for something _inside_ of her, making Kagome bleed.… and hurt like Hell! Screaming, Kagome had somehow disentangled herself from the vice like grip and had extended her arms towards the lady….

From there on, she wasn't sure what had happened exactly. She remembered closing her eyes tightly, feeling desperation and lack of understanding of the situation seize her, the environment as she knew it through visuals disappear... and the world explode in colours. A tingle in the tips of her fingers, her arms outstretched -palms out- and power released in a single blast from her very soul to the approaching centipede youkai.

Kagome sighed and shook herself from the spell the memories had cast upon her to see where she was heading. Standing on the corner of Daio Street, she surmised that she was indeed heading in the right direction. _Now, let's see... Four more blocks ahead until reaching the Miyamura Cafe, and then...ehmm...to the right until reaching the river bank of the Suruga and three more blocks ahead._

The street light turned green, and she crossed, lost in a throng of people.

_Wait. Was it to the right of the Cafe or to kaa-sans right when she was explaining it to me?..._

"Damn."

Stopping once again, she delved her hand in the pocket of her tartan skirt. She took out a piece of folded paper and unfolded it. Her mother, who always thought in everything, had drawn her a map so she wouldn't get lost._ Like I always end up doing,_ she thought bitterly.

_O...kay. Yep, it's to the Miyamuras right, then river, then Five more blocks. Yep, ok, got it._

Putting the little map away again, she continued her trajectory.

Her mind began to dawdle off one more time...

It would be the biggest understatement of the century to say she'd been scared when she'd opened her eyes, back on that fateful autumn evening, to find a pair of crystal green ones staring fixedly at her. Her family cat, Buyo, had been lying on top of her chest, purring happily his damnably comfortable cat life away, as they both laid sprawled at the bottom of the well.

She had been dirty, her clothes askew, and her face the picture of the truly terrified. She'd also been covered in a green goo that she had distantly thought to be the youkai lady's remains.

Buyod looked at her and purred, it's eyes condescending and almost mocking, as if nothing had happened. Then, the voice of her brother at the other end of the well had reached her.

"Oy, onee-san, you alright?"

"Souta..." she whispered. Her throat had felt raw, as if she'd screamed her lungs out. The ripple of a thought had occurred to her then. _You did_.

"Did you fall down? Can you climb up? No? Ok, I'll get okaa and jii-chan to help." He scampered off, the quiet giggle he had tried to hold down, emerging from his throat.

Help had come and with little effort she'd been lifted up and driven inside the house. At the first glance of her goo-covered persona, Souta had laughed outright and remarked something about her having sneezed too much on the well's dust. Her mother had been shocked and asked if this was some sort of joke from her friends on account of being her birthday.

She hadn't been able to form a coherent thought for at least an hour...after which she had screamed and wailed with terrified liberty.

Much talking and thinking had ensued later. Theories were given, conclusions drawn, but it was only after her grandfather had brought a brownish, haggard-looking piece of kakemono he'd found laying around his dusty library shelves that the _Truth_ was brought forth.

Apparently, Kagome was the first in over 100 years to show any´ spiritual ability in her family line. How? By bursting into tiny green pieces the centipede protector of the well whom, when feeling her miko aura approaching had been quite eager to munch it...and _her_ in the process.

Her power had been dormant until reaching her sixteenth's year, the age were most students of the holy arts became priests and priestesses in old times. Thus they had awakened and, as belonging to the descendant of the Shikon guardians, it had brought forth power craving creatures...such as the centipede lady back at the well house.

Now, as miko power _did_ exist in her bloodline one more time -something she had hardly believed until then, and had assumed were only the vapid wishes of her grandpa's old mind-, Kagome was forced to accept her family legacy and became the Shrine's brand new priestess.

She reached the murky banks of the Suruga river. Many tables and outside games sets were scattered on it. Already at noon time the place was filled by countless youths enjoying the somewhat cooler breeze coming from the ocean through the river.

Sighing, she kept on walking.

Ever since that day, her life had been..._different_. Between miko training, her responsibility for the Pearl, archery -"the traditional ability all priestesses of our lineage possessed, child!" her grandfather had dreamily said with misty eyes- homework, and trying to resurrect her rapidly decaying normal teenage life, two years had seemed to fly past her without saying goodbye.

Now as an adult and on the brink of finishing high school, she was quietly re-thinking her priorities. _Perhaps some holidays might do_, she mused._ Yes... somewhere far and warm. Like... ehmm... .the Caribbean Islands or Fiji. Oh, soft white sand, the endless blue ocean and a cold drink with a little green coloured umbrella on it... Perhaps a hot Caribbean waiter wearing only a pair of tight-fitting shorts, too. The day would be too hot to wear anything else, anyway._

Kagome groaned. She knew it was impossible. _But dreaming is so easy... and addictive too._

_But no, I mustn't! I have a responsibility to fulfill here. I am the Shrine's miko and must perform my given duties at all costs -not mentioning the fact that I'm the **only** one with any capacity to **really** exorcise a demon for miles, anyway._

_Oh, but what I'd give for some time off. Just a couple of days on a distant beach...Me, some palm trees, the waves, a huge Mai Tai and hot waiter making a little hoopla dank-- Oh, I'm here._

Standing in front of the big, black glass edifice that was the city's Council Building, Kagome shook herself awake -though wearily- from her daydreaming. Taking a deep breath and fixing her blouse and skirt, she entered.

The glass doors opened automatically, allowing her passage to an enormous circular hall. The place was richly decorated in browns and blues. Sofas, low tables and chairs of mahogany laid in perfect order over a deep blue carpet that apparently covered the entire floor. The ceiling, Kagome noted with a gasp, was held far up, and in its circular surface the battle of the Bakumatsu no Douran was painted in all its bloody glory.

Dazedly, she stepped inside and walked towards the receptionist's desk that stood in the middle of the entrance hall.

"Konnichiwa," a petite woman of very short, raven black hair told her, through the brim of her glasses. She was typing fastly in a computer, and her focus barely strayed to Kagome.

"How may I help you?"

"Anou, konnichiwa. I'm Higurashi Kagome and I have an appointment with... ehmm…." she blushed slightly.

_Argh. I forgot his name... so embarrassing! Why does this keeps on happening to me!_

Rapidly, she dug in her skirt's pocket for the map. On the top of the page, in her mother's neat handwriting, the kadous Tatakai Yiu´ were written.

"Yes?" the woman urged, politely.

"Ah... Tatakai Yiu-san. Yes, I have an appointment with Tatakai-san at 12."

"Hmm." The woman began to swiftly switch windows off, and with her mouse, opened new ones. "Let's see... Ah, yes, Higurashi Kagome. Yes, Tatakai-sama is in a meeting at the moment, but you can wait for him in the Commodore Kawuro Room, 5th floor. That'd be.… four doors starting from the elevator, to your left."

"Doumo arigatou gozaimasu," Kagome bowed and moved towards the elevators. She pressed the button and as the doors parted, she got in.

The elevator was a cylindrical tube of glass and shiny metal, that allowed it's passengers to feast their eyes on the interior of the building and the outside surroundings at the same time.

_My, governmental facilities are surely grand. _Kagome chuckled but thought ruefully.

_If I'd known this is where all the tax money was invested into, I wouldn't have complained so much about it... Such decor is sure worth the citizens blood._

Soft music was playing, and the view of noon-life Tokyo made her smile. It may be over crowded, polluted and overbearingly _human_, but it was the city she knew...and couldn't help loving.

Inaudibly, the elevator stopped and the doors parted again. She stepped out to a long, blue carpeted corridor. To the right, the whole wall was a humongous window-pane, with a view to the sprawling city and the distant Tokyo Tower. To the left, brown doors, each with a golden tag signaling the name and office number.

_Mmm... Kanajo, no... Itouchi... no, no... Aja! Commodore Kawuro of the Emperor's army._

_Hm…. Each room is named after a captain or commander of the old armies. My, the interior decorator sure had a fetish for the past…._

Quietly knocking, Kagome waited at the door.

A moment later, a young woman of clear brown eyes and hair opened and, smiling, said "Ah, konnichiwa. You must be Higurashi-san." Stepping to a side, she gestured Kagome to enter.

"Please come in. Tatakai-sama will be arriving shortly. I'm his personal assistant, my name is Kikuchi Yoko."

"A-arigatou, Kikuchi-san." Kagome bowed politely.

"Please have a seat."

The interior of the office continued the dark colours of the Warring Eras´ theme. A long, deep black sofa stood to a side, in front of which was a mahogany low-table. In its middle was a neat crystal vase with fresh white tulips.

The woman motioned towards the sofa with a light hand gesture. As Kagome sat and fixed her skirt, the secretary asked "Would you like something to drink, Higurashi-san?"

"A glass of water would be fine, thank you."

"Very well," and the woman exited through a side door.

Kagome sighed, and reclined against the sofa.

She knew why she was here, or at least she had an inkling of why she was being required at the city Council of Tokyo.

_Another case. This is the fifth in less than ten days…._

Ever since her powers had shown themselves to the outside world, she had suddenly realized how many cases of rampaging supernatural..._ness_ there was lying around! Many a time people had come to the shrine for serious cases of hauntings, exorcisms, hexings, etc. She had thought during the times her grandfather had taken care of this matters -and old man whose only incursion on Shinto priesthood had been, until this day, the indiscriminate sticking of wards around anything…. and _anyone_- that it was all a bit of hocus-pocus´ really, or a prayer here and there, or something the like.

Oh, the grave mistakes of the unknowledgeable.…

On her first case, where a little girl had been possessed by the spirit of her deceased sister, she had had to perform a series of high level spiritual blessings´.

To say they hadn't gone well was to put it lightly.

Half the little girl's bedroom and the garden's oak tree that had stood near the window had been blown to pieces when she hadn't correctly calculated the aura needed to pour into the first step of the exorcism -the placing of the 16 ritual mamori around the body of the victim-, and she had overdone it.

Too much power had been wrongly channeled in the charms, and as the little papers hadn't been able to hold it, it had exploded, spreading all throughout the place like a tidal wave. Luckily, she'd reacted quite fastly, chanting a norito and erecting a simple barrier to protect herself and the child.

Three more priests from a neighboring Shrine had been summoned after the embarrassing episode. Between the four of them -majorly the three more experienced priests and Kagome´s sad attempts at helping-, the spirit had been fastly pinpointed as coming from a piece of white nuno the little girl had hid under her pillow. Apparently, it had belonged to her sister's death cloth, and she had secretly taken it as a keepsake of a sort from the funeral. The deceased's spirit had clung to it even after the parting's rituals and, slowly, had taken full control of the girl.

Once the spirit had been controlled and safely sent on her way with an amiable preemptive push and a soft scold, the attention of the other three monks had been directed entirely to _her_.

They had been flusterly outraged at her lack of control, lack of restrain and especially lack of _brains_ to take up such a complicated task on such obviously untrained hands, without thinking once on the almost certain possibility that she might hurt the child!

At the time she had stood motionless, head bent, hands nervously clenching and unclenching... quietly wallowing in self-pity. She had acted rushedly, stupidly, and all because she'd thought that after having the devil's luck destroying a centipede lady and having taken some random classes on Shinto priesthood from her grandfather for three months, she'd be able to achieve anything.

In a few words, she had moronically taken for granted her miko powers.

And the price had almost been too high.

_If anything had happened to that little girl...I don't know what I'd done with myself._

But, ever since that episode, she had intensified her work to more successfully tame her aura, and had practiced more. _Experience makes you smarter._

It had been a tough lesson, but it had helped her see the reality behind what she _didn't_ know of the spiritual world, and that, as a miko, she'd have to face whether she wanted it or not.

It was her assigned job to help anyone in need of it, and she was going to make it the best she could.

"Higurashi-san? Here you are," the smiling face of Kikuchi Yoko appeared through the haze of her daydreaming, one hand extended holding a glass of water.

Blinking a couple of times, Kagome smiled in return and grabbed the glass.

"Arigatou, Kikuchi-san."

The door through which Kagome had entered opened. A man of medium height and jet black hair came in, holding a briefcase and several manila folders in his arms. Yoko hurried towards him and bowed, welcoming him. Then she proceeded to help him with his burden.

"Doumo, Yoko-san," he said and groaned as he moved his shoulders in a slightly circular motion to ease the tension. "I thought I'd never reach the office."

"Aa, Tatakai-sama. You should've left the papers for me to handle..."

"Iie. It's alright."

He turned, and his eyes focused on Kagome, who had stood up and was quietly waiting for his acknowledgment.

"Ah, Higurashi Kagome from the Higurashi Shrine, I presume?"

Kagome nodded, and bowed slightly.

"Yes, I was expecting you. I must first apologize for making you wait, but... you see, a nasty little business popped up this morning...and the meeting could not be postponed."

"That's ok. No harm done."

"Very well, then, if you're so kind as to come with me, we'll discuss things in my office."

Tatakai gestured to a door on the right side. He walked to it and opened it. Inside there was a small and rather cozy room, largely taken up by a big mahogany desk filled to its brim in stacks of papers and folders.

"Ah...I apologize once again for the state of my desk, but we've been rather busy as of late," he said lightly.

Kagome smiled. "I understand," she simply replied.

"Please have a seat, Higurashi-san."

"Hai."

She sat in the blue chair that was directly facing the desk, while Tatakai sat on the one behind it.

"Ok...Well, as you must've already guessed, I have bid you to come today to ask for your help in the solving of a rather… urgent matter." He said distractedly, as he scanned fastly through several of the folders he had sprayed in front of him.

"Ah! Here we are," he said, extending a black folder to her. On the cover, the kanjis for "Jinja no Zojoji" and the chrysanthemum crest in gold lining stood up perfectly against its dark background.

Kagome looked at the Emperor's family and Shinto shrine crests, puzzled.

She opened the folder and skipped through the pages. A couple of pictures of the Zojoji Shrine, and also of several priests and priestesses she didn't know but easily recognized for their black and white garments as the Emperor's personal clergy, were stacked in.

"Ehmm...what's this?" she asked slowly.

"You see, Higurashi-san, a couple of weeks ago the Emperor's daisaiin, Kajiura-redi, fell into an inexplicable trance...and hasn't woken up still." Tatakai said with a grave voice. "All the other shoten and nai-shoten of the Emperor's Shrine had tried everything in their power to bring her back to consciousness, but nothing's worked thus far."

Tatakai stood up and walked to the window. His black eyes hazed slightly, as though fixed on something beyond the moment.

_He seems awfully tired... _Kagome thought, as she looked upon the frowning wrinkles on his forehead, and the dark circles under his eyes. _The minister position of a city like Tokyo must be exhausting._

"Both the Emperor and Empress are truly worried for the daisaiins safety, as all of us are, of course. Without Kajiura-redi commanding the Imperial clergy... Kami! I shudder at the thought of what may become of the entire Koshitsu no Shinto." Tatakai muttered darkly.

Sighing, he continued.

"It is of primordial importance that the High Priestess is brought back to us...yet none had been able to reach her. Nevertheless...is it true, Higurashi-san, that you're the fabled Shikon Pearl's guardian?"

"Hai, I am. The Shikon no Tama has resided in my temple for over 500 years...or so my grandfather -the temple's current historian- claims."

"So, the Pearl really exists, eh..." Tatakai murmured without turning to face her. He seemed to be talking more to himself than her, and Kagome suddenly had the distinct suspicion of where exactly this conversation was heading.

"I am curious, Higurashi-san... Please tell me, has the Pearl been used before? Have you ever seen its powers?"

"Iie. I'm afraid not. I haven't even had the honor to see the Tama itself, for it is _rigorously_ protected at the main pagoda of my family's shrine, Tatakai-san." Kagome said evenly.

_Yep, I know _exactly_ where this is going..._

"Ah, I see..." This time, though, he did turn around and his keen eyes focused squarely on her.

Taking a deep breath he said, "Higurashi-san, I must humbly ask you to please unveil the Shikon Pearl and use it to bring Kajiura-redi back to us."

Kagome instinctually flinched. _I knew it._

His tone was hard and even, yet there was something in his eyes...Where before they had shone amiably, now a sort of steel-like glint appeared reflected on them.

Kagome opened her mouth to reply her negative, but he cut her off rapidly.

"Please," he continued, this time a pleading visage openly evident on his features. "You do not understand how important this matter truly is. If the High Priestess were to fall under such... _ambiguous_ circumstances, the Emperor's divine nature would be put to doubt and the groups that oppose his Highness rule will take pleasure revolting! The cityd become a chaos! And the new Minister elections are barely a couple of months away... The imperial system is already standing on clay feet, what with all the useless communistic and democratic ideas coming from the West and our young people being so foolishly prone to believe everything that comes sailing from the exterior without first remembering the importance of tradition and keeping one's national identity, without the foreigner's taint!"

By now, Tatakai Yiu was deeply flushed and out of breath. He had even pounded the desk a couple of times during strategic parts of his speech for emphasis.

"I...ehmm..." Kagome, on the other hand, was speechless.

Tatakai closed his eyes and sighed, apparently trying to regain some semblance of control. Then, he passed a slightly trembling hand through his brow.

"S-sumimasen, Higurashi-san. That was terribly rude of me and completely uncalled for." His eyes opened once again, and their earlier calmness seemed to have returned. "I hope you can forgive me." Then he sat down again...and promptly burst out laughing. "I seem to be apologizing to you quite oftenly this day, ne?"

Kagome blinked, baffled. _My, he has more mood swings than a group of schoolgirls after a chocolate-induced fever..._

"I-it's ok, Tatakai-san...I, ehmm... I think I understand. But," here she looked down at her lap, where her hands lay over, entwined. "I'm sorry to say that, though I see the urgency behind your request, I cannot comply."

When she looked up at him again, her storm colored eyes were calmly impassive, the complete opposite of her inner turmoil.

She knew she had the civil obligation to do everything that was in her power to assist her distraught Emperor, yet she also had the duty to protect and secure the untouched´ nature of the Pearl _at all cost._

_What to do? What to do! I want to help, I really do...but to use the Pearl is... _

_No-no-no-no. Besides, it can only be used by someone with an unselfish wish for it to remain pure and not destroy everything into bloody tomorrow. But Tatakai-sans wish is tainted in way. For though I'm sure he's worried for the daisaiins health, he's also doing this because he's being pressured...probably by the Emperor himself or someone from the higher levels, or whatever. No, I can't let him have it._

_Argh. _

Kagome shook her head.

_How do I explain this to him without getting arrested for opposition of the law!_

"Tatakai-san, the-- the Tama is a dangerous object. Not even I am sure exactly what kind of force is contained within it. If it is used incorrectly, a greater tragedy than loosing the daisaiin may happen. I cannot give it to you, please understand." Kagome said firmly, and in the privacy of her head, she gave herself an appraising pat for her quick thinking.

Tatakai Yiu looked at her for a long time, as if measuring her words. Then he sighed.

"You do realize I could simply order you the hand it in, and have your entire household arrested for opposing a direct request from the Court, don't you?"

"H-hai. But still I would refuse...as am sure my family would, too."

Tatakai closed his eyes, and shook his head defeatedly as he murmured a quiet "I'm sure you would". Then he stood up and moved to the window again.

He remained in silence for a while, deeply thinking his next move.

"I give up," he finally said, looking outside at the summer's sun. "I knew it was a long shot asking for the fabled Pearl... Many members of the clergy were outraged when I even suggested it, even refused to let it enter the Zojoji premises were I to attain it…. But, I had to give it a try." He stretched a hand and placed it over the window pane. "I do not know what to do with this case anymore," he muttered, and it was so soft that Kagome almost missed it.

Tatakai turned, then, and regarded the young woman sitting at his desk.

"I will not force you to give me the Pearl. I'm sure your..._reticence_ is well founded."

"The Tama is legendary fabled for causing more troubles than those it fixes, than for its prowess," said Kagome, remembering her grandpa's stories.

"Indeed, I was aware of it. Yet, I had the hope that perhaps--But, it doesn't matter," Tatakai smiled slightly.

"It was very kind of you to come today over such a short notice, please, do no let me detain you any longer..."

"Wait! I-if you please, Tatakai-san," Kagome said hurriedly, casting her eyes downwards. "I... ehmm... I would like to help with whatever I can. Not with the Tama, of course, but, if you want, I could come over and see if something can be done. I'm not very experienced and my abilities can't be even _remotely_ compared to those of the shoten, but...still..." Kagome mumbled, blushing pink.

_God, I never know how to offer help with these things….There should be a manual that gave you some tips as to how to approach the matter without looking like a mumbling idiot…._

Tatakai chuckled.

"You are a strange creature, Higurashi Kagome."

Kagome sweat dropped. _Really, now? Come tell me about it..._

"Y….es, I don't see why not. There's no harm in trying, they say. Plus, you _are_ the Shikons protector, you must have some amazing abilities, ne?"

"Anou...that's not what I--" Kagome began, confused.

"It would be an honor to have you in the case, Higurashi-san."

"Ah...hai. Arigatou." Kagome mumbled, still shocked at the other's change of thoughts, and stood up. _I better leave, cause I swear if he changes moods one more time, I'll scream._ "I better be off, then."

"Very well. Thank you very much for your help, and hopefully I'll see you at Zojoji...is tomorrow afternoon alright?"

"Hai, it's fine."

"Well, we'll be seeing again Higurashi-san."

"Sayounara, Tatakai-san," said Kagome. She bowed and, opening the door, left.

_My God, what an inconstant man…_her mind supplied as she bowed one more time to Kikuchi and headed outside to the elevators.

999

Meanwhile, a couple of blocks away, a white dog -only a black spot on his left ear marked any imperfection-of medium height sat mesmerized in front of a butchery, silently gaping at it's contents.

Suddenly, he felt an itch on the left cheek. _Must scratch.´_ He sourly thought, cursing the bloody nuisance that fleas were on summer...

But also, next to the Tower of Tokyo, in a small nondescript shrine of ragged appearance, two boys discussed the prison that held locked the once powerful Lord of the West.

The place they were in had obviously been, a long _long_ time ago, a traditional Buddhist Shrine of rather cozy proportions. With just the long stairs, a grim looking red torii and a main temple that was slowly falling to pieces, it looked as if abandonment had been the lest of what had happened to it.

Time and the inclement weather had taken its toll upon the poor woodwork and the once delicate masonry. Now everything was grubby and dark, green moss and grass covering almost completely the cobbled floor.

An orange and white tape surrounded this little shrine from the trees of the backyard to torii, to shrine and back to trees again; and to a side a small wooden sign proclaimed that it's once holy grounds would soon become a WacDonald's, for lack of funds to keep it.

Inside the main temple, through grayen wooden corridors and down half-crumbling stairs, two boys sat, one next to the other, throwing small pebbles and branches to what laid in front of them…

Which turned out to be three concentrically drawn circles of red rune-like kadous, upon which middle stood a monolithic stone from where several sets of silvery chains emerged... that kept a demon tightly bound. Or at least _Ae Deamon Sleepths here, Be aware!_ was what a small moss covered wooden sign to the right, read.

That noon, right after school, Hasode Mamoru, the eldest of the two boys -13 years old- had stumbled upon this holy _hovel_ and, as he'd read the sign, he had snorted.

_"Oh, p-lease_,he had said derogatorily and confident, while his friend had stood behind him, grabbing his shirt between nervous finger and shaking, taking small peeks of the demon from the cover of Mamorus shoulders.

_Mamoru snorted again, more loudly this time._

_"As if that overgrown, obviously stuffed puppet would be dangerous. It's obviously there as part of a tourists attraction or something."_

_Then he had proceeded to throw a rock at it to show his intellectual superiority to that of the apparent looser who'd thought a rag doll would be scary, but the rock had suddenly stopped in mid-air and fallen inertly to the grown, without reaching it's target._

_Frustrated, he'd thrown another...with the same result._

_One after another he'd thrown things, but not one of the pebbles could pass the first of the drawn circles on the floor._

_Mamorus best friend, Kawato Toshihiro -Toshi, for short; 12 and a half years old- had supplied the idea to throw something...bigger. _

_Mamoru, as the ambitious, implacable 6th grader he was, had smiled wolfishly and thrown the stone head of what once had been a small Buddha._

_Again the head seemed to momentarily be held in the middle of nothing by an invisible barrier at the border of the first outermost circle, then fell lifelessly to the floor._

Now, four hours later, they both sat silently pondering the true source behind this apparent invisible wall.´

"You know," Toshi said abruptly, as he distractedly threw another pebble...only to watch it stop and fall. "I once saw in... ehmm...in one of those American comics... ehmm... I think it was the Great Fours or something, and...is like they were four guys, yknow? And like there was a woman that could... ehmm...like use her invisible powers to make shields and everything with just thinking it. Maybe...maybe this is like that?" He explained this all with great hand gestures and onomatopoeic sounds...for his friend to better understand.

"The cartoon you're talking abouts called The Fantastic Four... and no, I don't think the Invisible Woman is behind this," his partner replied, drawing his knees up and glaring at the still form of the demon.

"I _think_," and here Mamoru made a pause for dramatic effect. "I think that that _thing_ is the one behind the barrier." He said and pointed in the demon's general direction.

"The d-dae-diem--diemo--?"

"_DEMON_, you ass! Don't read the sign, it's written in old kanji."

"Uhmm... but didn't you say the de-demon was a dolly?" Toshi asked in a squeaky voice, uncertainly eyeing at their topic of conversation.

"Well, yeah! of course it is! Duh! But...oh, I don't know... What's up with all that loony writings on the floor and creepy statues lying all around, anyway? And look," he stood up, and approached the demon as far as he could go without touching the barrier. "Look at that. It's all covered in wards and paper." He circled the still, kneeling figure.

"Mou! Moru...don't go near, it's dangerous!"

Mamoru squinted his eyes at the demon and bent slightly forward.

"The only thing you can see are his eyes, the rest's covered..." he muttered sourly.

Indeed, the prone figure was chained and circled by countless wards and charms...apparently to prevent it's movements. The only thing visible were it's hair -that was so long it pooled about him-, and one slanted, closed eye.

"Tsk. I wish we could get to it... ne, Toshi?"

"Mmm... I-I don't know, Moru. They must've locked him for something, right?" Toshi said uncertainly. "What if it's really _really_ a demon and it eats us! Or-or what if it's a _walking curse_ from the Gods! I heard kaa-san once say that walking c--"

"Oh, p-lease. Don't be such a wuss. It's only a puppet. No one can live prancing about with that hair anyway, not even a _girl_. And curses are ugly." Mamoru said knowledgeably.

"You know, those five little Buddha statues near the circle look...suspicious. Maybe they're the ones holding the barrier, ne?" Mamoru continued and circled said statues -that stood reaching barely to his waist-, right hand scratching his chin in thought.

Then he stopped and poked one with a finger.

No barrier protected it.

"Mamoru...wh-what are you doing? I don't th-think that's a--"

Grabbing it with both hands, Mamoru pushed. The little Buddha fell backwards and cracked with a dry sound against the floor.

Mamoru smiled and turned to his friend.

"Cool! Yo, Toshi, try throwing a rock now!"

"You broke a B-Buddha! Now what if it--"

"Come on, baka! Throw the damn rock!"

" Mou, Moru... I don't--" Toshi wailed.

Behind them, no sooner had the statue fallen, that the outermost circle of written kadous began...waning, and slowly disappeared in a puff of blood-coloured smoke. It rose gently in light, hazy rivulets and...vanished. Only the two inner circles remained.

Mamoru, oblivious, crossed his arms.

"Argh! Do I have to be the one to _always_ do EVERYTHING!" Stomping back a few steps, Mamoru bent down and picked up a piece of the temple's masonry. Then he turned and, aiming, threw.

The projectile flew through the air like a comet, reached the external barrier…. and passed...

Mamoru cheered.

Toshihiro gasped.

...until it reached the second circle where it stopped, stood still...and fell languidly to the ground.

Mamoru groaned.

Toshi sweat dropped.

"Damn! it was so close!"

"Ne, Mamoru... I think you shouldn't have done that--"

"Oh, shut up!" Mamoru rasped, stomping towards the entrance. Collecting his discarded backpack in a furious whim, he said "I'm out of here, this place sucks, anyway!" Without turning, he continued over his shoulder. "Come on, you baka! Let's go. My tou-sanll be worried."

"Mou, wait for me, Moru!" Toshi hurriedly stood and, wiping dirt off his shorts, ran after the already out-of-the-shrine Mamoru.

Their steps and bickering voices faded slowly through the gnawed corridors. The shrine fell silent again.

Outside, the trees foliage swayed gently in the warm, summer's breeze embrace.

The white dog with the black spot on his left ear now laid curled up under a parked car, still a couple of blocks away. He had been fed some cookies by a girl in the Tome Square, so now, content, he rested under the cool shade of the car.

His black spotted ear suddenly twitched as it caught the faint buzz of an unknown power.

His right ear twitched, too. A flea had inaudibly bitten into it. _Must scratch,´ _he thought...and cursed the nuisance of fleas in summer again.

Back in the old shrine, the demon that stood trapped behind 1001 sealing wards regained consciousness.

This demon that once in Sengoku Jidai had ruled as the Lord of the West, cracked one eye open after three hundred years of imprisonment.

And smiled.

999

Glossary of Japanese words: (in order of apparition)

Hajimaru : beginning, dawning.

Shufu : housewife

Midoriko-redi : Lady Midoriko

Chihaya : white long-sleeved top worn by a shinto miko.

Onmyo-ji : mediums, exorcists. Any priest/priestess with the ability to manipulate his/her

powers to help others.

Kami-dana : ("Shelf of Gods") an altar with central place in temples and homes of believers.

A mirror is placed in it's center and Gods are thus connected to Earth through

them.

Mononoke : spirit of the woods.

Bakumatsu no Douran : the battles brought forth throughout all of Japan by the end of the

Shogun's leadership.

Doumo arigatou gozaimasu : thank you very much.

Mamori : charms used as aid in healing and protection, both from real sickness or spiritual

ones. They have many forms and purposes.

Norito : a prayer. It is a Shinto custom for the high official of the shrine (in this case,

Kagome)to pray to the God when power is being invoked, thus they're blessed and

protected.

Nuno : a piece of cloth.

Doumo : thanks.

Jinja no Zojoji : lit. The Zojoji Shrine (The Emperor's Shrine).

Daisaiin : Grand High Priestess of the Emperor.

Shoten : male clergy.

Nai-shoten : female clergy.

Koshitsu no Shinto : the Shinto of the Imperial House.

Torii : wooden gate standing at the entrance of shrines. It is the special gateway for the

Gods. It marks the world between the finite one (living) and infinite one (dead).

Kadous : Japanese symbols (hiragana, katakana, kanji, romanji).

C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

(999)

"…." talking

(….) thinking

(999)

Chapter 2: :Youkai:

"Are you sure you don't want me to wait for you, Kagome-chan?" said the woman, leaning on the window of her blue family car.

"Iie. That's kay. I'll be fine, kaa-san," Higurashi Kagome smiled, reassuring her mother from the sidewalk.

"O-kay. Take care, then and be careful on the way back home, honey! Bye!" said the woman turning the engine on. Then she drove off with a light hand wave.

"B-ye!" the girl waved back. Turning, she fixed the plaits of her white-with-tiny-green-flowers dress and faced the long gray stone steps that lead up to the Zojoji shrine.

She groaned. (_Why in the name of all that is Holy do they have to put shrines all the way up there is something I will never understand. And the higher ranking the place is, the highest up it is located!)_

Kagome could already feel the muscles on her legs tensing in distress with the oncoming climb. But, squaring her shoulders and chanting (…_this is good exercise, this is good exercise…)_, she began the ascent.

Yesterday, she had been summoned by Tokyo's Prime Minister, Tatakai Yiu, to help in the solving of the rather mysterious trance the Head of Japan's Shinto Religion had fallen into. According to the file she'd been given, Kajiura-redi had gone to the main pagoda that fateful day to say her morning prayers. A couple of hours later Shikimura Ryoei, Head shoten and right hand of the lady, heard a chilling cry coming from there. He rushed inside and to his horror found her lying as still as death itself in the middle of a puddle of blood.

From here onwards, a loony parade began. Shikimura called the daisaiins personal guard, and they called the Emperor's Advisors, and they called the captain of the Emperor's guard, and they called the cops, whom finally -and with a bit of logical sense, if she was allowed to say- called forensics. _They_ did an inspection, scanned the place and finally declared that the lady was not dead, nor in any apparent danger to be. And that the blood did not, in fact, belonged to her but to a dead... goat.

_(Ugh. Gross! Who'd be so sick as to leach out a poor unsuspecting goat to death only for the sake of a dramatic scenario!)_

Rumors, whispers and full blown shouts had been heard all around the shrine, about the hundred and one possibilities as to the daisaiins unnatural state of sleep.

_(Who'd do such a thing? And for what purpose?) _Kagome frowned. (_And anyway, what is the real problem with her! I mean, she's not physically injured or ill, the forensics would've unveiled that in a blink. Her soul could not have departed for her body would've began withering away in a few days, and already two weeks have passed..._

_Then what!)_

"Mmm...perhaps..." she mumbled, scratching her chin in thought. (_Perhaps she got lost on her meditation, or went too deep... I've heard it's very dangerous to stray too far from the border of this world when one prays, but... It could be.)_

Quickly, she shook her head. (_Wait, no! If that'd be the case, then the shotens and onmyoujis that have tried working on her would've noticed the absence of her aura immediately... )_

"Argh. This is too confusing..."

Four more steps and she reached the top of the stairs.

The first thing that greeted her eyes was the tall torii. Made of gold planks and cherry wood, it stood regally brushing the heights. White fluffy clouds drifted over it, giving Kagome the hazy sensation that the wooden structure was moving...as if it were about to fall over her.

_(Don't be daft, old girl! It's just optics. Yeah, optics...but just to be sure...)_ She quickly moved through it to the other side, the tingly sensation of holy power tickling her skin.

In the distance, beyond the cobbled path that laid straight in front of her, stood the shrine.

It wasn't grand or exceedingly sumptuous. On the contrary, it was only the traditional two-stories building, flanked by the conventional two pagodas to the right, and minor shrine to the left, the Tokyo Tower rising undaunted at it's back.

But what the place didn't have in size, it did have in beauty. Made of rich cherry wood and gold, it's walls depicted intricate drawings and writings. As in the horizon the sun was languidly setting wrapped up in orange fire, it's light dyed the tiles of the four constructions a deep blackish red. On the corners of the roofs, the heads of golden dragons stood with their jaws opened in menace.

In the path that Kagome was now walking, going from the torii to the shrine, two perfect opposing lines of poles stood, the long square flags of royal blue bearing the chrysanthemum insignia of the mikado. All around, sakura trees were in full bloom, shedding their pink petals like ragged feathers.

All in all the view was simply.…

"Breathtaking, isn't it?" a male voice said behind her.

"Gah!" Kagome quickly turned around, right hand flying to her heart. "Ta-Tatakai-san! Kami! you frightened me!"

Tatakai Yiu laughed, lightly extending both hand in an appeasing gesture. "Oh, my! I'm really sorry, Higurashi-san! I assure it was not my intention to do so."

Kagome nodded, still slightly spooked.

"I appreciate your coming this afternoon, Higurashi-san. It was really nice of you to offer assistance..."

Kagome blushed a light shade of pink and smiled. "Arigatou," (_My, he sure does seem changed today... The wrinkles on his forehead have vanished and his eyes are brighter. He looks younger now.)_

"Well, then," Tatakai continued, turning around and going inside the temple. "Shall we go in?"

In spite of the outside heat and lighting, the place inside was slightly cold and enshrouded in darkness. Kagome followed the man closely, looking about and feeling peevish by the reigning silence.

"Demo….where's everyone?" she said in hushed tones.

Tatakai shrugged, hands in his pant pockets. "Amaterasus honden, I presume. The last five times I came they were all there, praying for the lady's health." He sighed dejectedly. "Praying seems the only thing left to do..."

Kagome nodded, feeling a compassionate pang in her chest.

"But now that we have you here, there's still hope, ne?" he continued in merrier tones over his shoulder, winking.

"A-anou--"

"Ah, here we are!"

They both stopped abruptly. Kagome peered ahead. A pair of big wooden shoji screens laid shut at the end of a long passage, no doubtly leading to the daisaiins personal chambers if the royal kadous at it's top were any sign. To both it's sides two armored guards dressed in the royal blues and whites of the Emperor's House stood poised.

_(Also wearing a pair of very sharp, very mean looking daiyos each...)_ She gulped unconsciously.

Tatakai approached them and bowed respectfully. "Konnichiwa. I ask for permission to enter the daisaiins rooms." Standing, he gestured for Kagome to walk forward. "I come with the miko Higurashi, guardian of the Shikon Pearl."

A pause was made, in which all the guards fixed their eyes on the poor unsuspecting teenage.

One of them turned to the other and whispered, not so silently, as he peered at her through the corner of his eye. "A miko? In that clothes?"

"Shhh!" the other admonished.

Kagome blushed more intensely.

One of them, the kumichou by the white nuno wrapped about his right arm, was the first to snap out of it. He was a tall handsome man, with long deep coloured hair neatly bound at the base of his neck and keen green eyes. He swiftly moved to stand in front of her. Extracting the katana from his sash, he held it in front of him vertically and bowed, forehead to the blade in the ancient greeting of servant to higher lord´.

"It is an honor to have you here, miko-sama," he said in a smooth voice. Straightening he motioned the others to move aside. "Please enter."

And in they went. First the guard, then Tatakai-san and at the rear, Kagome.

The chamber was huge. Generous lighting poured forth from a set of four rice-paper windows, giving the room an air of undaunted sparseness. To the left, a cherry wardrobe with the traditional sakura design; to the right a low chabudai with red velvet pillows to sit on carefully strewn around it. And in the center, close to the windows, a double futon with gold coloured linens were the lady rested.

At a light head gesture from Tatakai, Kagome approached silently and kneeled near it.

She felt slightly nervous at the hawk-like vigilance the other two bestowed upon her persona. Fidgeting, she tried a inhaling a few deep calming breaths.

She never performed very well when watched.

But as she turned towards the victim of this apparent supernatural comma, what she saw made her throw her embarrassment off a mental window.

She choked.

_(Kami-sama, she's just a child!)_

Indeed, a little girl laid as still as a statue amidst the folds of the futon. She was pale, face as a blank mask, her blood-coloured hair fanning about her head like a halo. By her features Kagome surmised she couldn't be more than 12.

Suddenly, fear gripped her. The child was so still that….

_(Oh Kami! I-is she ...dead?)_ Kagome´s heart plummeted to her feet.

Bending down, she placed her nose near the child's one. To her great relieve, a light puff of air touched her.

Kagome swore she could have almost fainted of relief at that moment.

Quickly, she brushed the perspiration off her forehead and sighed.

_(O-kay, then. First thing first, I need to feel her aura.)_

Suspending both hands -palms down- over the child-daisaiin, Kagome closed her eyes. Concentrating, she let the noises slowly recede and the visual world vanish.

Her aura reawakened, spreading like an invisible silver-coloured mist about her and reaching that of the child.

In the black depths of the connection, she saw the tilt of a little light in the distance.

Reaching out with the ghostly tendrils of her power, Kagome caught it.

It was a red butterfly, made of light and energy.

(_It's Kajiura-redis aura!)_ Kagome noted with quiet awe.

For an aura to have a form, an impersonation beyond that of a simple shield or mist was something rarely seen. Full control of extraordinaire power and many decades of hard training were required to achieve that, and most of the time not even that worked!

_(Yet this child can... No wonder she rules the Zojoji no Jinja...)_

In a few seconds, thousands of little titillating butterflies surrounded her, probing with their fiery wings the threat that Kagome could possibly represent.

She let them approach and envelop her completely. The air around her began to weave and spark in power, like the beginning of an arson. An odd tingle coursed through Kagome´s body at that moment, and suddenly she felt as if she were being set on fire….

...but soon she realized it wasn't her the one burning, but the daisaiin.

Her aura was like the sun, strong and wild, the pulsing of an inner fire that went beyond the surface and sprouted from a constantly burning core.

_(Power spurned from power….)_

In a few seconds, it vanished though; the connection stilling completely.

Kagome inhaled sharply the fresh air of reality, opening her eyes as quickly as any drowned would upon reaching safe ground. A mild light-headedness invading her senses, she looked upon the apparition that was the child-daisaiin.

Never in her short career as a miko had she felt power so bright, so…. so….

_(I can't even put it in words!)_

Standing slowly on shaky feet, Kagome bowed and mumbled a hushed "Yurushite kudasai for the intrusion". Then, turning, headed back to the entrance were the others awaited.

The kumichou was standing as straight as any other guard, his beautiful green eyes fixed upon her in a blank look. Tatakai, on the other hand, was fidgeting, worry wrinkles once again marring his brow, hands twirling with each other. He was the first to talk.

"Well? Is there anything you can do?" he said, strained.

Kagome shook her head silently in negation. "No, not for now, at least.

I connected with her mind. It doesn't respond, but she feels...her aura feels fine," Kagome said slowly, left hand massaging the bridge of her nose.

_(Aura-channeling sucks.)_

"And?" Tatakai pressed.

"And if her aura feels fine, then that means," Kagome turned weary eyes towards the unconscious high priestess. She sighed and faced Tatakai again. "That means the problem runs deeper."

"Deeper? What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure myself but...Oh, how should I put this…. If anything external, shall we say, were to try to invade the daisaiins mind, then her aura would flare and attack it in retaliation. If said invader were to take successful control over her, then her aura would end up sucked by the other.…or simply vanish." (_With the life of the daisaiin as a bonus….)_ she finished mentally.

Tatakai raised an eyebrow in puzzlement.

_(He doesn't understand now, does he?)_

"So you mean to say... it's not someone from the outside then, but from...within?" he said, carefully pronouncing each word.

"Ehmm….yes and no." Kagome replied carefully, too.

Tatakai raised both eyebrows. The kumichou did so, too.

Kagome blushed. "Well, you see, it could be something from within as I just said, for personally I think it's the most probable…. a spirit from the Netherworld or something the like perhaps, but it could also be something form the outside. That is, if it is powerful enough, of course, to overpower the daisaiin…." She tapped her chin lightly, fixing her gaze on the floor, deeply pondering. "When I connected with her, her aura arose and...prodded me in a way. It was... I have never sensed something the like! So strong, like a raging fire." Here, she focused solely on Tatakai. "If you ask me, I don't think it's possible for something-- someone to exceed that kind of power. It should be.…out of this world."

"So it's more probable that something is holding her from inside, then?" Tatakai said, trying to come to grips with the comings-and-goings of the supernatural world.

"You could say so, yes. Nevertheless..." Kagome sighed. She felt exhausted, worned out, like a ragged doll after too many years of children abusing of it. (_Is it possible for something that has even more power than that to exist? And if so, how will I fight it? Whatever will I do to fix this mess?_

_Why do I always end up involved in the muddiest grounds...?)_

"Hmm…. I see." Tatakai finally muttered, snapping Kagome out of her depressing reverie.

The three of them moved outside the room.

Both Tatakai and the girl quickly bid their thanks and goodbye to the guards and walked past darkened corridors once again, now gratefully lit by small red lanterns with a flickering flame inside.

Kagome blinked, still marveled as the image of the daisaiins aura replayed in her mind.

_(They're so similar, these little lights and her... Someone so small holding such great prowess...)_

"It must feel very lonely..." she whispered, lost in herself.

"Pardon? Did you say anything, Higurashi-san?" The quiet tones of the other drifted to her ears.

"Huh? Ah, iie! Just mumbling to myself, I guess…." she said smiling and scratching her left hand.

A question nagged her, and she couldn't hold it in for long.

"Anou…. since when has Kajiura-redi been the...daisaiin?" she asked hesitantly. She wasn't sure whether it was okay to ask something like this. She had heard from her jii-chan that the private lives from the members of the Court were an absolute secret.

Tatakai turned...and frowned in thought. "Well, for all I know Kajiura-redi has been the High Priestess for, let's see," he looked up, seemingly making a mental sum. "Ten years, give or take."

Kagome´s jaw almost broke in two against the hard floor.

_(Ten years! Good Kami! Has she been here since birth!_ )

"A-ha-haha...really, now?" she tried saying in a light tone, which ended up sounding like the creak of a poorly-oiled door.

"Mmhmm. The Emperor said she had been selected by the Goddess herself! It was a great honor for her family when they were informed."

"I-I see..." Kagome felt a shiver run down her spine. She knew very well from painful experience the implications of being chosen, of having powers beyond those of what was seen as normal´. But to be daisaiin, to have you selected by the mikado himself!…. it must've been tenfold worst.

_(She must've been taken away, then. Far from her mother and father…. Secluded, locked up in a golden cage...and trained to near exhaustion. And all because she has power, because she can see´ what others can't... How can she stand it? I would've...I wouldn't have held on for so long…._

_She's so little...)_

Kagome peered back over her shoulder. At the far end of the corridor, the wooden gates were once again tightly closed, the guards standing tall, like concrete statues in eternal attention. She couldn't help aching for what laid inside.

_(What is wrong with you Kajiura-redi?_

_...where are you?)_

Legend tells us that upon waking from her century-old sleep, Sleeping Beauty embraced with happiness her charming prince and from her eyes a thousand white pearls fell like drops of tears, for every year she had lost asleep. Snow White smiled, and the glass coffin were she had laid melted away as if illuminated by a pure ray of sunshine, in it's place flowers of all kind sprouting glamorously.

Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, merely yawned and smoothly brushed off his clothes the churned remnants of the 1001 charms that had kept him trapped for 300 years.

He wasn't prone to petty Disney sentimentalities.

Slowly, he looked about. Dust, decaying woodwork, half crumbling statues of Buddhas…. Apparently he'd been locked inside a rather shabby little human temple.

_(Hn.)_

Where was he?

The dampness of the place was making his sensitive nose tickle and the murky darkness forced him to adjust and readjust his eyesight. Mildly cocking his head to a side, he concentrated his ears and nostrils on what laid beyond the temple walls…. and flinched.

Immediately he had been bombarded by the not-so-delicate sounds of what was the life of evening Tokyo. Roars, blares, buzzes, clatters, voices, anything you might imagine and more... And the smells! Kami, the reek of thousand upon thousand of humans, all cramped up together, living, breeding, dying…. sweating.

Any other person in his shoes would have swooned nauseated, most probably fainted, too. But he was Sesshoumaru, ex Ruler of the West, one just did not acquire such title by vomiting every time one felt disgusted.

He merely groaned.

_(It is summer, then. Interesting, I recall it was winter...)_

With his characteristic grace, Sesshoumaru unfolded himself from his sitting position and stood. His clothes, though they had marvelously survived the inclemency of the passing the ages -thanks to the magic of the charms, no doubt. It wouldn't do to have the most powerful demon that once roamed the Earth to be chained to a rock and fully naked after a 100 years….- were a bit dirty and worst for wear.

His hair, though, had somehow survived with it's pristine silk-like quality very much undaunted.

With a light hand movement, he flicked it over his shoulder.

In his situation any other would have felt hysteric, scared, panicky or at least mildly worried. After all, it isn't every day one awakens to find himself in what was obviously not his land and surrounded by what he sensibly assumed were countless pestering humans. Yet Sesshoumaru only felt the slight stirrings of curiosity and the oncoming drum of a headache.

This wasn't so surprising, either. He had lived upon Earth for more days than grains has a desert dune of sand. He had witnessed first hand the ruthless prowess of Lady Nature. Had seen the reckless, lust-driven minds of sorcerers and kings at work. Had felt the mind-numbing strength that gave Light, and had equally bathed joyously with the blood of innocents in the name of Darkness.

He had walked with the gods.

He had stood still as the world and the ages moved.

He had also looked down now at the yellow sash wrapped around his waist. His swords weren't there.

_(They must've taken them...)_

In the blank canvas of his mind, images began to take form. The white-covered valley lost in the capes of Mount Fuji in one of the crudest winters he'd seen in a long time. The lazy snow like cold strings of cotton, falling from a midnight sky without a moon…. And beneath, his lands and territories. Burning.

A non-descript army bearing torches, gliding like deadly fireflies, setting the territories of his forefathers aflame.

Trees, grass, rivers... Every nook and cranny burned to the core.…

As he watched from afar.

For the last hundred years, the humans had moved. They'd spread as easily as fungus on humid grounds, overpowering, bringing down everything in their path with the frail blades of their man-made swords and their fire. Mindless men who overthrew the four reigning daiyoukais of Yashima not by prowess or skill, but by cunning and the sheer increasement of their species.

Sesshoumaru had seen all this, but he hadn't interfered. Life was life, and everything had it's written date of expiry, whether one so wanted it or not. Everything living was firmly attached with a golden thread to death. To some, it took mere decades for the thread to snap, while to others it held strong for centuries on end. The only apparent constant were the gods and demons, who could survive a millennia without aging a day.

Yet still they all had to die, too.

In the intimate depths of his brain, he conceded with mental contempt that he had let them catch him with a rather foolish easiness. The trap hadn't even been powerful or well concealed, either! They'd been a group of bald men, wearing the purple robes of monks and shokoujos. They had surrounded and imprisoned him. He asserted, though, that he had, indeed, fought. A bit. Just not with the same passion as he once had.

Perhaps he'd felt bored beyond the point of survival or reason; perhaps he'd been tired and unconsciously craved for a break. After all, not even he was sure any more how many years exactly he had spent roaming the world. Perhaps he had simply lost focus, had lacked…. motivation.

He hadn't had real interest in anything….

...hadn't possessed nothing to deem worthy of his protection.

So, he had always stipulated that he'd eventually die in the profound greenness that was the nishi no mori, vanishing from this world encased in the legend of the power and greatness he had possessed when alive, just like his forefathers had done.

He never stipulated he might be spared.

And now here he was, stuck in a place only Kami knew where, in a time obviously not his own -nothing in his time produced anything remotely similar to the blasts he'd heard outside, and he prided himself of knowing every part the world had to offer-, surrounded by the noisy humans he always felt contempt towards and the unknown expanseness of a new age.

The flicker of curiosity flared up inside of him. Well, just a notch.

Languidly he turned and moved towards the door, beyond rotten passages and sooty stairs, to the World Behind This Temple.

The sun was setting in orange and red flames beyond the horizon, the shadows from trees and buildings expanding, merging with each other to create more darkness.

Sesshoumaru stopped at the entrance of the shrine, amidst fallen masonry and tall blades of grass.

In the second that takes the viewer to blink, he disappeared…. Only to reappear a moment later standing at the top of the torii.

From his high perch, he impassively roamed with all his senses what this new place was about. Keen eyes focused beyond streets and buildings, inside and out. His ears perceived the sounds and quickly analyzed them, assessing and forming ideas. With his sharp nose, he scented the air to briskly get used to each and every smell.

_(The first rule of self-preservation is to know the grounds.)_

Suddenly, Sesshoumaru felt the spark of a power to his right. He turned his head, eyes trained over what was walking across the road.

It was a girl apparently lost in deep thoughts, for her head was bent, eyes on the ground, hands entwined in the straps of her small white backpack. She was also wearing a remarkably indecent outfit, though Sesshoumaru had to concede it must be quite comfortable on such hot weather.

Said girl, Higurashi Kagome, was indeed lost in the raging oceans of her mind. That's why when she felt the hissing flicker of demonic power, she almost fell face first to the floor. Luckily, years of training to dodge her grandpa's attempt at protection´ -i.e. indiscriminately sticking wards even inside your mouth!- had given her quick reflexes.

So she merely stumbled.

_(Demon!)_ her mind screeched.

In a flash she whirled around her head, hand unconsciously moving to her madly beating heart, eyes trying to discern where that ki had so suddenly come from.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Forty or so cars in the street trapped in a traffic jam, horning each other. The trees of the nearby park standing still for lack of wind on which to sway in. A group of giggling teenagers; people chatting in the cafe in the corner. More people waiting to cross the street. The closed shrine in front with...

Kagome gasped, her wide eyes immediately glued to what was standing over the torii. It looked like a man dressed in white, though the sun and shadows dyed his clothes with oranges and black and made his facial features almost impossible to discern. He was tall and remained rigidly poised up there, staring.

Kagome shuddered. His rippling power was cold as it crushed hers.

_(Wh-what is he looking at me for? Who is he!)_

She gave a step back, startled…. and blinked.

He disappeared. So did his ki.

Kagome gasped again, more loudly now, her head moving this way and that, searching for him. (_He vanished! How is that possible! No one can do that so fast! Did-did he fell?)_ Her thoughts rambled. But she highly doubted it. (_He didn't seem the type to fall off anything... And how come his aura's vanished, too?)_

Kagome rubbed her eyes a couple of times with the backs of her hands. Then she looked up again. Nothing.

_(Did I imagine it?)_

She closed her eyes and tried feeling the surroundings. Nothing at all.

"Ugh, peachy. The last thing I need to put the cherry on top of the creamy cake that is my life is to suddenly begin seeing things!" she mumbled darkly, frowning.

_(But I didn't imagine it….)_

She stood still for some moments, waiting.

Once again, nothing happened. Reluctantly, she turned and resumed her walk to the bus stop. Still, she peered twice more over her shoulder towards the shrine... just in case.

Giving up, she sighed. (_It couldn't be real, but... I could swear I saw it._

_I did see it, didn't I?)_

When she reached the corner, she stopped and looked up again.

Nothing.

_(Did I?)_

(999)

Glossary of Japanese words:

Youkai: demon.

Mikado: Japanese emperor.

Amaterasu: Amaterasu Ohmikami (Sun Goddess) was the first daughter of Izanagi-no-mikoto and his wife Izanami-no-mikoto.. She is also the ancestress of the Imperial family of Japan. She's the chief deity and her shrine is at Tokyo.

Amaterasus honden: it is the place were th God of the shrine lays. It is a construction, like an altar of a sort, but quite big. People pray inside, so imagine the size.

Kadous: Japanese symbols (hiragana, katakana, kanji, romanji).

Daiyos: the set of two samurai swords: wakisashi and katana.

Kumichou: captain.

Chabudai: low table were tea and food are served.

Zojoji no Jinja: lit. The Zojoji Shrine (The Emperor's Shrine).

Yurushite kudasai: "Please, forgive me".

Daiyoukais: Great Youkai.

Yashima: ancient name for Japan.

Nishi no Mori: The Woods of the West.

(999)

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and support, it's very fluttering (blushes madly). Anyway, there was one in particular who had some questions, here are the answers to them:

1)Yes, the youkai is Sesshou.

2) No, the miko is not Kikyou. It's the Head of the Imperial Shinto Religion, Yuki Kajiura-sama (an 11 yeared-old child).

3) Ajajaja…no, no! The dog in Chapter 1 is NOT Inuyasha...Ehmm...it's just a dog. A simple every day dog. ) I put it for the purpose of….well, I can't remember now but surely it had a VERY important purpose.

Anyway, thank you very much! I hope you like this one, too. And remember, if you have any questions or anything you wish to know, make me know!

C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

(---)

"…." talking

(….) thinking

(---)

Chapter 3:Kekko:

Kagome continued walking pensively through the bustle of evening Tokyo. Lights were beginning to flare up and people swarmed about. As it had been a nice summer day, the streets were overflowing like a tidal wave of people, like a fish bowl with a hundred little fishes trapped in it.

Her sandaled feet took her towards the nearest bus stop. Her home was a bit far from Tokyo Tower, more near the residential area or suburbs. As it was getting late, she'd decided to ride the bus. While her body moved, her mental hinges turned.

The case was the only thing occupying her mind-and in a distant, hushed part that creepy torii-standing demon from a while ago; she could think of nothing else! Her head was a mass of scrambled ideas and half-baked suppositions, all fighting and epopeyic war to call her attention.

She couldn't for the life of her figure out what in the name of Buddha was wrong with the girl. Had she been cursed?

_(No, impossible. A curse always leaves a trace in a person's aura.)_

Had she been drugged, then?

_(No! The forensics and doctors would have surely noticed something like poison on her. Yet they said she was, as far as physical goes, completely healthy...)_

"Yeah, right...that's why she's so healthily unconscious, ne?" she muttered bitterly, and kicked a small pebble.

Had she drifted too far in her meditation?

_(Can't be. Too much time's passed; her body, without the soul, should've already withered...)_

Kagome was beginning to feel the pressing need to pull her hair off. Instead she growled.

"Argh!" Kagome cried in frustration, crossing her arms and tapping the ground with her left foot.

By this time, Kagome was already standing near the bus sign. A young woman in her twenties, with long chocolate hair loosely bound at the back and dressed in a simple blouse-and-skirt summer outfit, stared in mild shock at this steaming, strange girl.

"Ehrm….miss? Are you alright?" she asked –partly in courtesy, partly in curiosity- with a tentative tone. Her eyes were like almonds, and a soft pink shadow over them accentuated their shape.

"Huh?" Kagome whirled around, blinking to clear her wandering thoughts.

"I said, are you alright there? You seem a little bit….eh..._off?_" she made a graceful gesture with her hand. She was taller than Kagome, of a slim but strong complexion. Her face was mature despite having, apparently, not so much age difference with Kagome.

"Mmm? Ah, hai. I'm fine, thanks," Kagome tensely smiled.

_(It's just that the Head Priestess of the entire Mikado's Shinto Religion has fallen mysteriously asleep and I'm supposed to reawaken her! A-ha-ha-ha! Me! Poor old me, who can't even paint her fingernails without varnishing in bright red half her hand!_ )

She was feeling a little hysteric now.

The woman raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at the girl's slightly quivering lower-lip.

Upon seeing the other's waiting expression, Kagome supplied, "I'm just a little on edge, that's all. Just some minor... problems."

The woman looked at her dubiously.

"Alright..." she said and turned around with a flick of her long hair, thus finishing the exchange. She thought girls these days just didn't know what _real_ problems were.

Kagome thought normal young women would never understand what having eighteen and a whole load of miko-ish responsibilities felt like.

Sighing, she rested her tired body against the bus pole. Her shoulders ached a little and she was sure tonight was going to be a no-sleep one.

The bus took it's bright little time in coming. By the time it did, the sun had already sank completely and the depths of the buzzy, hot summer night had began deepening.

Quietly she climbed in and sat at the back seat next to the window.

Her eyes roamed the passing streets full of life, electricity, yet she remained apathetically disconnected.

Fastly her holydays were running out and still she hadn't had time to properly enjoy them. What with working full time at the shrine, training, and studying she hadn't gone out on the almost already gone two weeks.

Her friends had come by her house a couple of times, with offers of forest picnics and disco nights, but every single one of their invitation had been received with a quiet "sumimasen" and a lame excuse or other.

Kagome groaned. A headache was coming on.

Not long ago her grandfather had taken up the civil duty of inventing bizarre old-people's sicknesses to fill the heads of her poor, unsuspecting friends in order to help her. Yet it had somehow bounced back when Houjo, a young, blithe sempai at her school -whom had apparently developed a serious case of infatuation towards her- had made _his_ civil duty to bring each and every herb/ointment/pill/etc. in existence to help her heal them.

_(Yeap. Here comes the headache...)_

Now, Houjo visited the shrine everyday with his customary smile and wrapped up medicine, only to be rejected by her grandfather with his vapid allusions to a new sickness...which, in turn, made him come back again the next day! Oh, the endless circles of the amused Fates...

She sighed. It was enough that she had to deal with creepy supernatural things and have her entire life bound to a little shinny, encased pearl -that, by the way, she'd never be able to pawn or use for it's legendary propensity to cause world chaos- that she also had to deal with this trifling, everyday life!

It was impossible not to see that in the depths of her heart the molding she was forcing herself into to become the most similar semblance of a proper miko was fastly draining her. On this dreadfully hot night, Kagome was pondering for the hundredth time that very same week, if trying as hard as she did was really worth the effort.

Her head thumped with a rhythmic pulse.

At that precise moment, it definitely didn't seem so.

_(Kaa-san always says that we should make the best out of what is given to us, but…. Oh, it's so hard sometimes that I just want to scream and take the first plane to Fiji for some well-deserved extended holydays! _mental sigh _Alright, alright, I know I'm exaggerating.)_

"This is just a phase, only a phase. Like the flu or….ehmm…. pre-adolescent pimples," she mumbled and couldn't help giggling with the off-handed memory of her ear-splitting wail for having to live with a huge pimple on the nose for a week crossed her mind. She had been so young at the time…. waltzing through her merry fifteen._ (Actually, it was only a couple of years ago. Mmm…. My God, time DOES fly by, doesn't it? It feels like an eternity ago...)_

Looking out through the window, she saw her stop was near. Quickly, she stood up and climbed down the bus. (_Only two more blocks and I'll be happily safe at home. Kaa-san must be preparing dinner...mmm… perhaps she prepared tempura, or soba! Oh, heavenly soba, my favorite!)_

Kagome instantly felt her mouth water, the day's problems forgotten...well, almost.

She couldn't help the flash of the image of the little daisaiin crossing her mind. (_Such power, how can that be humanly possible?)_ She shrugged mildly. The girl _was_ the Emperor's High Priestess, after all. Kagome supposed that having grand powers was a must on the curriculum.

The girl had seemed to her like a porcelain doll though, or the impersonation of an apparition, so pretty and delicate, enshrouded by her blood coloured hair and ambary linens.

_(She certainly does look like a butterfly)_, Kagome conceded, as she hurriedly climbed the steps of her home.

As she reached the top, Kagome unconsciously glanced up the torii and shivered.

The demon, or whatever that thing had been, had been standing at the now closed Kyoudenkyo shrine's gate. He'd been staring at her. _Fixedly_ staring.

_(...and that youki, such odd feeling youki. I should talk to jii-chan about it..._

_But what if it was my imagination? I have been a little under stressed lately, so...)_

A pause.

"But what if it wasn't?" Kagome felt the creeps making their way down her spine. Though the weather was bordering hot with the approaching night, she couldn't help the chill of dread that coursed her spine.

If indeed she hadn't imagined it and that kind of _being_ really existed...Well, then to say they were pooped´ would be mild. It was so powerful that it could hide and disappear in a second without a trace, just like….

"Oh my God!" Kagome gasped, eyes going wide and hands flying to her mouth. (_It-it could be connected. He could be involved in Kajiura-redis state, couldn't he! I mean, how many people can have such cold power? He looked so suspicious, too… what with hanging over a wooden pole on deserted shrines and all..._

_OH-MY-GOD! It could've been him! And I just had him in front of my eyes!)_

In a second, she dashed towards her house, a barrage of possible connections between the two creepy events flying in her brain.

_(I need the phone! I need to speak to Miroku!)_

_(999)_

"Argh!" Kagome growled and stomped her foot against the carpeted floor, phone firmly grasped to her ear.

"He's not home! How is it possible! It's bloody Wednesday, for God's sake. Where in the name of Kami did he went to and at this time!"

"Argh!" Kagome clicked the communication off and dialed again.

Five minutes later and still nothing. "Dammit, Miroku! Where are you?" She conveniently shut out the little voice at the back of her head that whispered him being absent on a Wednesday night wasn't so odd. After all, he did have a life and holydays to enjoy…

Kagome sighed dejectedly.

She had reached her house in a blurry flash, barraged towards the phone and called her friend...only to have no one answer it!

Also, her house seemed to be inconspicuously empty..

_(I'm hungry, frustrated and there's no one to take it off on!)_

"I need a cup of tea," Kagome finally sighed, placing the phone on the receiver and dragging herself to the kitchen. It was a true bitch when things just didn't work as she wanted. Switching the lights on, she moved to the counter. On top of it, in her mother's neat writing, she read they had gone out for a quick visit to the market for some last-minute buys.

"This is just not my day," she said moodily, moving about putting the kettle and preparing her green tea.

She sat dejectedly at the table, resting her head on her outstretched arms.

Her brain was spinning with ideas and conjectures and the haziness product from coming in too close a contact with the daisaiins aura. And then having to feel that youki so soon after –less than an hour, for Kamis sake!- just hadn't helped.

She put a cool hand to her forehead. "C'mon Kagome...you've felt drowsy before." She looked longingly at the back of the fluffy sofa on the other room, too far away of comfortable reach. Instead she plopped head down once again, eyes closed, rapidly drifting off.…

...only to be awakened by the whistle of the kettle.

She opened one eye. "Uhn. Tea's ready."

Standing, she moved about the mechanics of preparing hot ocha in automatic. Then, lumbering towards the living-room, she sat on the sofa and stretched.

"Ah….so goo-d." Grabbing the cup between two hands, she sipped softly. Hald-lidding her eyes, she let the hushed atmosphere of the empty house lull her into a semblance of peace.

It lasted very little, though. The face of an unconscious child just kept popping on her mind. She wanted to help her, she really did; but she had no reliable experience on solving detective cases like this one. She tried picturing what the characters of the police novels she had once been so fan of would do…

"O-kay let's think fast... How to solve a mystery?" She stood gingerly for the action made her spine sound, something she hadn't expected.

"Ouch! Right... no rough movements, then. Let's see, I need…. paper and a pen, and the case's folder, too." She got up to retrieve these items.

She had never been sharp enough to solve mysteries for she couldn't pride herself on the quick mind they required, yet she had accepted this burden and she was hell-bent on seeing it through. The case was a dire one, and certainly more complicated in it's mysticality than any she'd faced before. There were very few clues, naming the blood...

_(...from a dead goat that, as it was a goat and now dead cannot be counted as proper witness or suspect.)_

The scream…. (_belonging to the daisaiin, according to what Shikimura-san alleges….)_

And Shikimura himself.

_(Wait a minute...) _Kagome furrowed her brow and began quickly passing the pages on the folder, skipping through it's content with eager eyes.

_(Here says Shikimura was the first to hear the scream, because by the time the other shotens reached the main pagoda, he was already there. Yet he was not the one closest… _

_So, how...?)_

A that moment, the front door slammed shut, the voices of her family drifting to her ears and efficiently cutting off her current train of thought.

"Oh, konnbanwa, Kagome-chan," her mother greeted, placing several plastic bags on the floor at the foot of the door. "How was the meeting?"

"Ah, i-it was fine, kaa-san," she replied, moving up to help her mother and grandpa enter the rest of the groceries. "Demo... I couldn't do much to help."

Kagomes mother moved towards the kitchen with the precision of a master of her craft. She quickly began unwrapping supplies, taking out bowls and cups from the high cupboards, and simply setting to make dinner.

Meanwhile Kagome, whom had followed behind, sat once again at the table and began to retell the events of that afternoon.

"I see…." her mother said as the tale wore off. "She has aura reaction but no mental recognition. It is rather tricky, indeed."

Kagome nodded her head distractedly. "The worst is I can't find anything odd in all this. Except…. well, I've been rereading the case's folder and," Kagome halted. "Apparently, it was Shikimura-san whom heard the scream first."

"Is it now?"

"Yes. He said it was very loud and... distressed. That's why he ran in to check. But I've been thinking…. How's it possible he was the first to reach her when he wasn't the closest in location? The daisaiin was praying inside the main pagoda, yet Shikimura-san was said to have been spotted carrying some documents into the shrine's library…which is located all the way across the yard… Also, it was a normal hour at the shrine, other shoten were all around there, yet when the other's appeared at the pagoda's door, they said Shikimura-san was already kneeling beside her, and that no more than five minutes had gone by since the scream. When he saw the other's coming in, he called the daisaiins guard…." her voice drifted as she tapped her chin lightly. She was going into some very wild speculations here, but it was the only thing that seemed to nag her brain into attention "But why wait? Why didn't he do it immediately?"

"Have you spoken of this with Tatakai-san?" her mother asked, setting the table.

Kagome shook her head. "Iie. I only saw this now. I was trying to contact Miroku, but he isn't home."

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "This so confusing, and hard, and mind-wobbling…" She sighed. "I'm working on it, I truly am, but—I just don't think I'm getting anywhere…and my head feels as if it was swimming in marmalade," she said, depleted. "I only wish there was something else I could do…."

Kagome resumed her half-sprawled position over the table, head resting resignedly on her arms.

Her mother turned and focused compassionate eyes at the despondent figure of her daughter. "Oh, Kagome-chan… don't feel so down. I'm sure everythingll work out fine, you'll see."

Kagome simply moaned an assent.

The woman regarded her daughter for a moment more, then reached a slender hand and softly caressed the girl's forehead, face worried. "Mmm….you look a bit under the weather, too. Have you eaten anything for lunch? You weren't home all morning."

Kagome smiled ruefully. Despite all the odd things that happened around them, her mother was the permanent anchor. Full of sweet smiles, not many advices but an endless amount of reassuring platitudes, she was the pillar that held together the concave ceiling that were the Higurashi.

"Hai. I ate at WacDonald's on the way back from archery. I'm just a little tired, that's all." She managed a mischievous smile now, blue eyes wide and pleading. "But with the heavenly soba you'll most surely prepare for your most brilliant daughter, I'll be flying up in no time!"

Her mother laughed, "Yes, yes..." and quickly moved towards the stove to prepare the ordered dish. "It'll take a little time to be done. Why don't you take a bath meanwhile?" she suggested, turning. "I'll call you when it's ready."

Kagome stood and stretched her back. "Ha-i. I think that's just what I need."

Turning, she went upstairs.

Ten minutes later, Kagome sighed contently as her body immerged slowly on bubbly water. She rested her towel-covered head against the furos edge, the jasmine scented water smoothly rippling at her chin. In the background, some old CD she'd found lying around her bedroom played a placid tune. Music while bathing helped her relax and quieten the jumble that was her everyday brain. At least, it usually did.

Moving a little to find a comfortable spot, she closed her eyes. (_Ah… the sweet pleasures only a furo provides...)_

Thoughts still swarmed her brain, like the obnoxious buzz of mosquitoes. Her eyes opened, half-lidded as she stared distantly at the whitened ceiling. The right hand's finger twiddled lazily with the edge of the bath-tub and water, creating constant bubbly ripples.

_(I should talk to Shikimura-san, or the detective in charge of the investigation tomorrow._

_(Such an odd thing for that man to be there...Could it be that--? No, impossible! But…perhaps…was he in there already when she screamed? But why? Why would she scream with him there? No one would dare attack with an audience to testify later, so…_

_Was she even attacked at all?)_

"Didn't anyone else see this?" She moved a little, drops of water wetting her nose._ (Hmm...)_

Her eyes dropped closed again. She felt weary, tired of having possibilities and what-ifs prancing inside her skull. But she couldn't help it, couldn't avoid the fact of feeling the desperate need to solve this. A child's life depended on her, and she'd be damned if she let her down.

She sighed despondently, her heart lurking painfully in her chest. How could anyone be so cruel as to harm a little girl –she being a powerful priestess aside? Why would a child be the receptor of such a treatment, for surely she was innocent? (_Of course she's innocent, what crime could she have committed to be so punished?)_

Kagome blinked languidly, sleep pressing upon her like a warm blanket. _(I'm not thinking right…mmm…so tired…)_

Quietly, she drifted asleep.

(999)

The night bloomed in utter blackness, with no moon to light it's depths.

Tokyo's National Park was plunged in the hot darkness of the summer night. It laid still as the hours moved slowly by towards midnight, stars dotting a velvety sky as they shone brighter and brighter when darkness deepened.

In the ground, the trees and bushes and the earth itself were of a black so profound that they seemed to have blended one with the others in monstrous creations of shadows and dark. No trace remained to be seen of the sunny Wednesday that had passed now beyond existence.

The National Park had once been, some 500 years in the past, the lush expanse of a forest so deep that very few had dared willingly enter it. It had been famous for it's fabled tales of demons and monsters haunting it's every nook and cranny, ensnaring unsuspecting villagers or travelers into it's depths to be unmercifully murdered...or even devoured. The once small village of Edo had flourished at it's border, and legend tells they had never suffered damage from the external armies that at that time of the Warring Era were so commonly seen ravaging small towns in raids of blood and plunder. It's inhabitants, peasants of no real knowledge aside of the craft of rice-farming and the fervent faith in invisible deities, had attributed this to the belief of a half-breed of an inu mononoke living in the woods whom protected them from harm. They had taken to say that this powerful half-demon of white hair prowled the forest's vastness in search of a mystical pearl that granted wishes, eliminating any who dared challenge his domain. The villages around reveled in this for he unconsciously secured no army to attack them.

He was said to be the illegitimate son of the once demon Ruler of the West, Inu no Taisho, and of a human hime of rare beauty. They had fallen in love at first sight on the night of the new moon, sealing their love by conceiving a son.

Yet their romantic escapade was not meant to be an idyllic one. Nine months later, under the darkened eye of a moon eclipse, the hime gave birth to a hanyou babe.

From here on the story takes many turns or twists of plot, according to the fancy and imagination of whom is telling it. Some say the babe was secretly taken far away from her mother, and abandoned on the gloomy depths of the forest that would later become his domain. Others, that on the night of his birth his wounded father came in search of him, but was detained and later slaughtered by the jealous captain of the himes personal guard, Setsuna no Takemaru. Others insist that he lived amongst humans in the dwellings of his mother's home, until she died of sickness and he was shunned away for his accursed nature by the very sames whom had protected him until then.

Some even alleged he possessed a brother of full demon blood, the ruler of the new House of the West, whom despised his very name.

Of course, non of these could truly be proved.

Still all stories coincide in that he soon became a rare being of even rarer prowess. He lived and was the main character of many adventures of danger and great heroism, many of them of dubious reality. With hair spun of silver and the eyes of the Devil himself, he forged with claws and sword his own mystical existence.

On those conflictive times, even mentioning his name would make the blood of any human and demon alike tremble.

Inu-Yasha... the half-demon.

No one had truly ever seen him in the face. Some alleged they'd seen his silvery shadow pass on the nights of the full moon, or heard his growl when he slaughtered some poor bugger who'd stumbled in that forbidden place.

No one knew him, or at least, no objective historical record was left behind on the nature of his presence...as is bound to happen to all demons and spirits of ancient times. Yet his legend was once created, his story of a shattered love for a miko who was not destined for a happy end once passed from mouth to mouth, and though no foolproof existed -not even in his time- of him, he became real. The stories made him so.

Edo moved from little village to sprawling town with the passing years, as the fires of feudal wars were quenched and the ashes of it's vestiges smoked into history. Still the forest remained in all it's glorious vastness untouched by human hands for many years more, as deep and profoundly mysterious as it had been so long ago.

Humans scattered and increased, and Inu-Yasha's Forest rapidly became the last hideout of demons and sprites, of fairy tales and legends.

But Modernism caught up with Japan far too quickly for the survival of these mystical beings, and even the respect and mystery that the forest had been enshrouded in, was soon forgotten.

Thus Edo grew and became Tokyo, from town to city to megalopolis in the blink of a five centuries-old eye. All forests and woods began vanishing with their legends, for now it was time for Reasoning.

Inu-Yasha's Forest diminished in extension and frondness; and though it survived, it saw itself reduced to only a quarter of what it had once been.

It became Tokyo's National Park….

At last midnight came and went, and still the heavy darkness remained undisturbed in this ancient, mystery-cloaked place. No sound stirred it beyond the lonely hoot of an owl, or the flap of wings of invisible bats. Everything laid still, inert, deathly quiet.

Time seemed to have been frozen in it's hinges.

Suddenly, there was a rustle of leaves. A twig snapped, the crack resonating like a gunshot in a cathedral. The air subtly changed, charging with invisible electricity.

There was a hushed hiss, and some dry leaves that laid scattered on the floor, moved up and flew gently like caught in the tendrils of the wind…but there wasn't any wind. Softly, they rested on the blackened grass again.

Another twig snapped. Behind the cover of darkened trees, a figure emerged.

It wore blackness for a cape, yet it was different from the surroundings in that it didn't seem made of fabric at all -or shadows for that matter-. It seemed dressed of a void in space, not the colour of black but the _lack_ of it. It was as if it was wearing a hole in the Universe for a cloak.

It glided slowly, it's clothes barely swishing, it's feet never touching the ground. The crackle of magic followed it as it passed like a silent spirit between tall trees and vines, never touching them, never making any sort of contact with the earth. Until it reached a shadowed meadow near the entrance of the Park. There, he remained standing for some time, completely blending with the night.

Suddenly, with a soft rustle of his cloak, the figure whistled.

In the sky, a new sound could be heard approaching. They were many flapping wings. Birds alighted hushedly on the trees surrounding the meadow. They were crows, thousands of them, with sharp beaks and glinting red eyes, that focused on that silent wanderer standing still in the middle. The trees soon filled with these winged predators, uncharacteristically silent. Immobile, they awaited.

On the ground, leaves and twigs sizzled with energy. The figure shuddered and it's cape bellowed around in the air, the folds of void material twisting and disappearing. The cloak sputtered backwards in a sudden flurry of feathers, as a pair of midnight wings unfolded on the figure's bare back.

It lowered his wings gently and breathed deeply. Once again the atmosphere stilled.

Some of the birds in the trees fluttered and cawed, restless, yet their eyes remained solely on the winged thing of the meadow. Their senses were alert, scrutinizing even to the tiniest shift of the other.

The dark figure slowly turned it's head upwards and surveyed the trees around through a mat of long darkened hair, with rugged black plumes scattered on it here and there. A sudden smile broke on his face and he barked a maddened laughter to the crows that watched him.

"I have seen it! I have seen who guards the Pearl, at last!" he croaked, his voice a barely discernible human sound, for it resembled more that produced by the crows. He laughed again. "Yesss, she's just a child! And the reincarnation of she who locked us so, so long ago!"

His maddened laughter echoed again through the forest. He extended his feathered arms to his side, his grin shinning pearly white towards the sky.

"We'll be free at last! We'll be strong and one again!"

The birds cawed all together at this, a deafening, piercing sound, and shifted their wings.

He whistled, and four crows descended from their perch to land on his extended arms. He petted them and groomed them with his tongue. "How we've longed for this moment, haven't we?" It said in a coy whisper. "Yesss, yesss we have. The Pearl will be ours and her blood will flow as a token of our revenge…"

He chuckled and crooned eerily as one of the birds pecked his hair. Then, with another flurry of blue sparks and black feathers, he pushed the birds upwards. All the crows spread their wings and took flight as one single, deep black bird. Over the hiss of the fluttering wings, the maddened laughter echoed, followed by the figure's croaked, crowy voice. "Go! Go and spy on her! She'll be ours by the time the moon rises again!"

He laughed, his lean frame shaking, his black wings unfolding.

With a single beat, the figure rose high, some stray feathers droning down in laziness. As he rose, his chant became a whisper lost to the forest air. "She'll be ours…. She'll be ours…. She'll be ours…."

"….she'll be…_mine_…."

The tree branches stopped moving as the flutter of it's wings disappeared. The National Park promptly plunged in quiet darkness once again.

(999)

Morning dawned and quickly became midday. A pleasantly hot day was barely unfolding.

Inside Kagomes bedroom silence reigned supreme as her figure snored quietly over the softness of her bed.

Outside, little birdies sang merrily to the summer sky as Kagomes grandpa swept the cobbled grounds and muttered darkly about said merry birdies dropping their blessings on his consecrate floor.

In the kitchen, Kagomes mother hummed an old romantic tune as she finished setting up the table for lunch.

It still seemed to be just another common summer Thursday to all who witnessed it. The key word here being _still_, because within the next few minutes Souta snaked his way inside Kagomes room with a large glass of ice-cold water firmly held in his hands and a grin that put the devils themselves into shame.

Slowly, very slowly, he approached the oblivious person that was his onee-san. Right hand moving forward, glass tipping down and….

Splash!

"AIIE!" Kagome quickly incorporated, simultaneously hauling at him the first thing that she came into contact with from her night-stand: a pink and yellow box of tissues.

"Oy! Hey, that hurt!" Souta scowled indignantly, left hand massaging the sore spot where the box hit on his forehead.

Kagome blinked away the remains of her dream _(Wasn't I riding a purple cloud over Okinawa…?What…Where am I?)_

Unconsciously, she passed a hand through her now dripping wet fringe and narrowed her eyes.

Understanding dawned.

(_Sou--)_

"--ta!" She turned her head in a flash, murder in her eyes.

Her little brother eeped and gave a step back.

_(Wrong move!)_ his mind chortled, as Kagome sprinted from bed in order to wring his neck into the next life.

"Come here, you little prank!"

"Iie! kaa-san! HELP!"

"Don't run, coward! kaa-san, stop him!"

"Okaa-san!"

They ran like two stomping wild rhinoceros, from up to downstairs in a blink. Then they moved to the living-room, passed the kitchen, yelled in the hallway and finally tackled one another in the yard.

"Iie! Kagome!" Souta cried as his sister began mercilessly...tickling him.

"Onee-san! Don't...Ahahahaha...don't...Ahahahaha! Stop, onegai!" he threw random pushes in the general direction of his sister, yet Kagome was relentless in her tickling attack.

"You deserve this! Why. did. you. splashed ME WITH WATER!"

He only laughed harder, as she found his weak spot on the sides of his belly.

"Now, now children...Behave," their grandfather's voice came from somewhere in the vicinity. He approached them, sighing at their childish antics. "Stop this or you'll force me to separate you with the broom."

Kagome raised her head and smiled a good morning greeting at him. Souta took advantage of the distraction and switched places. Now he was on top, tickling her.

"Ah! Souta you little back-stabber!" she cried, but couldn't help laughing at his assault.

"Surrender?" he asked in mock seriousness.

"Never!" She pushed him off, and grabbing a handful of sakura petals that laid in a neat pile near her -which her grandfather had so painstainkingly been piling all morning-, she threw it at him. Squarely on his face.

"Sakura wars!" he yelled, quickly dodging, and straining to reach for his own handful.

"No! Stop! My work..." their grandpa bellowed, stumbling after them with one fist raised and the broom threateningly shaking at them clutched on his other hand.

They ran, one after the other all around the cobbled yard, their yells and laughter echoing, blending with the sounds of the city.

"Children! Stop this nonsense. Right. Now." A firm feminine voice said, coming from the house's door.

At once the three of them froze, Kagome in mid dodge, Soutas arm outstretched as he had thrown a ball of dirt and pink petals which were still falling all around them, grandpa waving his broom in the air maniacally. They turned slowly, guilty eyes focused on mama Higurashi who stood with one brow raised, hands crossed over her chest.

The petals blew gently and settled, scattered on the once groomed ground.

_(Oh, oh...)_ Kagome thought, and gulped.

"Now," the woman said with a stern note. "Kagome, Souta, apologize to your grandfather for the mess you've made..."

Kagome and Souta both sighed, relieved that their punishment had been so tiny.

"...and clean up the yard. Souta, you'll also clean your sister's room for having thrown water on her bed."

Kagome smirked and Souta groaned.

"But...but kaa-san," came Soutas whine. "I tried to wake her as you said, but she wouldn't listen! I only did what was necessary..."

The woman sighed.

"Now, don't be silly, Souta-kun, you know perfectly well that what you did was very rude," came her once again amiable tone. "Hurry up and clean all this, or you'll miss lunch."

Ah, lunch, the magic word to break the spell. In a blur of movement, Kagome and her brother grabbed brooms and began working, still throwing some dark whispered remarks here and there to one another.

The work passed quickly and so did lunch, in a flurry of familiar chat.

Later, Kagome stood at the door of the shrine's pagoda, fully prepared to attend her miko duties. She was dressed in formal miko attire, staring fixedly at the altar that resided in the pagoda's middle. She was standing with an arm over her tummy, the other raised as slender fingers lightly tapped her chin. The sunrays illuminated her thoughtful posture, marking the gentle curves of her face and streaking her hair with silver highlights.

Thoughts plagued her brain and she was powerless to stop them. She was sure this was a similar –if obviously in a lesser size- setting as the one the daisaiin had fallen unconscious in. Most Shinto constructions were, in baser structure, almost equal one to the other. Only the glitter and grandeur of it belonging to the mikado or some other powerful family would make the difference.

She bit the corner of her lower lip and frowned. The daisaiin was very powerful yet despite that she had been somehow caught and put under a spell of some sort.

_(But what is it? I don't know of any spell that has consequences like this…It must be very strong and at the same time subtle to catch the priestess unawares.)_

Last night, before finally succumbing to the depths of her bed, the thought that perhaps the child had been put under a spell, invaded her. It wasn't so far-fetched, taking in consideration the lack of clues surrounding it.

Kagome stepped inside the little shrine slowly, unconsciously treading it's familiar grounds as if in a trance. She looked about her, not really paying much attention, but instead trying to imagine how the Mikado's shrine had looked like on that day.

Her hand lightly traced the paneled-wall's writings, and slipped away to touch the wooden plaques with the names of the previous priests. (_The person that attacked her must've been already there, for sure…hiding. But where? There is truly no good place to hide in a shrine, except-)_

Her stormy eyes flickered up and fixed on the altar.

Made of dark wood and silver planks, the Kami-dana to the Moon God was of considerable size. It glimmered gold with the midday sun peaking through the opened shojis. An ovaled mirror was held perfectly straight at its center by four intricate figurines of silver birds. It is believed that through that mirror, the Gods and spirits are connected to the human world. Thus it is that every day, it is the duty of all priests to greet their supernatural protectors by praying at the altar's feet. Every shrine has one God or Goddess to whom the family or community reveres. To them the prayers are sent, and in exchange for their attention, the Gods favors the human's pleas. It is, of course, a matter of how much faith one puts into their prayer to get the God's attention…and their favorable answer.

The fact remained that, besides being a consecrate place, it was quite big. It could easily hide a grown person's figure at it's back without giving anything away.

_(So, she entered the shrine that morning…)_ Kagome moved forward, towards the Kami-dana, her naked feet barely making a sound. _(…and went to kneel in front of Amaterasus altar.) _She knelt as she always did, sitting perfectly straight, hands automatically intertwining over her lap in praying position.

_(Her eyes were surely closed…)_ Kagome closed her own eyes, following every step that she thought the child could have done. _(Mmm…In her mind she must've seen the light of her power flare as the words of the prayer slipped her mouth…)_ She herself began chanting, independently from the knowledge of her brain; so used she was to the dealings of her work. Her aura glowed silver and pink, as she focused on the millenarian honorable words and a crime that was becoming more and more puzzling by the minute.

_(As she knelt, concentrated, the assassin lurked hidden…the only place I can think of would be—the altar. I've heard the Mikado's one is quite magnificent…)_ Hooded eyes slipped open and stared at her own altar in mild distrust.

_(Perhaps she heard a sound, something strange before the definite assault? Perhaps she saw his shadow, advancing towards her silently…)_ As the thought slipped through her mind, the creak of the wood-floor behind her resonated. Quiet feet were moving towards her.

Yet she couldn't listen, something about the entire bad-guy-hidden-in-altar´ just didn't quite…click.

_(But what happened then? Did he attack her so fastly that she couldn't even defend herself? Hardly…she's a professional in her art, having probably trained most of her life for that.)_

The steps became louder now, a figure prowled stealthily the back of Kagome. The sun shone behind it, and his shadow enlarged and engulfed that of the clueless, kneeling miko as her mind whirled in the possibilities of the past.

_(So, let's suppose he DID appear out of the altar. Then what? He jumps out, mutters a curse, and the daisaiin falls? Impossible! No strong curse can be cast so quickly. And besides, she did have time to scream.. ..)_

"Hmm…but if you can scream," she mumbled, eyes closed. "Why not defend yourself instead?"

"The attacker was too charming, perhaps?" a male voice drawled in her left ear.

….

A silent heartbeat.

A bird chirping in the distance.

A thud, as Kagomes behind hit the floor.

"AIIE!" she screamed and whirled around, hands flailing in front of her as the words for a barrier formed in her brain. Her power surged, flaring white in her defense. In less than a second, she was enveloped in a silver bubble, while her assailant laid sprawled on the floor some feet away, dazed from the energy blast that knocked him.

Kagomes heart was racing a marathon that the rest of her body had seemed to have lost. Her mind whirled between the daisaiins dizzying case and her current surroundings. So immersed she had been, she hadn't paid attention to anyone entering!

She blinked a couple of times, letting the barrier fall and quickly clambering to her feet. Still her right hand remained extended in attack position, in case the other decided he still wasn't finished accosting innocent girls!

Meanwhile, said attacker was slowly sitting up, a hand massaging his scalp in sore pain.

Kagome paused for a minute and frowned. Her eyes focused on that tall complexion, that amused expression and most of all, on that oh-so-familiar lecherous grin. Recognition filtered her mind.

She gasped.

"Mi- Miroku!" she said, aghast.

"Heh…Kagome-sama," the young man said amusedly. He stood up, tall and slender, chocolate hair slightly messy from the blow, coming undone from his lazy ponytail. He smiled roguishly at her. "As quick as always, I see…"

He bowed grandly, though painfully. "And, of course, just as pretty."

Kagome sweat dropped, picturing the lo-ong day that awaited her.

(999)

Glossary of Japanese words:

Kekko: past

Ocha: green tea

Shoten: male clergy.

(---)

:C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a:


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: (exhibits a dashing shade of red upon her cheeks) Oh my, reviews! Thank you very much for them, you're all very kind!

----------------

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

(--)

:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

(--)

"…." talking

(….) thinking

(--)

:Chapter 4:Suisoku:

Lazy puffs of mist arose through the air, cloudy wisps of steam drifting up from one of the many rocky springs that laid hidden at the foot of mount Sukushi, west of Kyushu Island.

A languid breeze blew and the mists parted, a figure distinctively seen resting at the spring's edge. Though the afternoon was hot, the air heavy with the blinding rays of the sun, someone was taking a bath in the hot water.

Sesshoumaru sat immerged in the soothing depths of the Anshin hot spring. His eyes were closed, head facing slightly up, the sunlight playing shadows on it as it passed through the dense foliage of the trees surrounding. He had spotted this secluded area by chance after having traveled all day and, upon laying eyes on it, had come to conclude a steaming bath was rather necessary.

As he'd shedded his clothing, puffs of dust and even a solitary moth had been released from the confines of his once pristine silk kimono. And he so hated dust.

The bubbly waters were quite pleasantly heated, not only good for dirt removal but also a welcome ministration for his cramped muscles -having remained sitting on a cold floor, sealed and tied for what felt like ages could do that to you.

An entire day had passed since his awakening, and only one question from the myriad he had swarming on his brain had been answered. Where was he?

In Yashima.

It had been rather shocking to realize that even a demon such as he found trouble pinpointing his exact location. Only by its still lingering earthen scent had he been able to realize his geographical position. After all, no one spent countless centuries roaming one's domain without sharing some sort of primal bond with it.

He had thus spent the majority of his recently reawakened state surmising the human oddity that his land had become. He'd flown over the entirety of Honshu, Hokkaido and Shikoku, saw the big towns and villages move with life beneath him; shimmering structures of abnormal height and crazy beings crawling in their buzzy environment; all a cram of colors, sounds and smells.

Sesshoumaru had roamed Modern Japan from head to toe in less than a day in the same manner as Columbus had upon discovering the wild new sights that America offered…

…well, except less eagerly and with a far better haircut.

His analytical mind had tried to find some common sense in this entire new environment. Perhaps he wasn't truly here, but dead?

He snorted.

Impossible. Nothing in the Nether World could ever compare to what he'd recently seen during his journey.

Perhaps he wasn't awake after all and this was just a figment of his imagination? Oh, please, it was such a ridiculous notion to think that he'd be able to dream such an obviously delusional place as this that, were he prone to laughing, he would have.

Instead, he just snorted again.

Truthfully, he couldn't think of anything that might explain his current situation. The worst part being he hadn't been able to find anything or anyone familiar. He'd visited the old Yuuwaku Mori where the talking tree spirit of his father's ancient seer had resided….only to find it gone and replaced with buildings. He'd gone to the Nishi Island, his homeland, in search of the House of the West…

His eyes drawled open, cat-like irises focused on the moving leaves looming close through the steam.

Only the base structure remained, the foundations of a once grand coastline palace. He'd been born on that house, just like his father and grandfather had, all the way back to the first member of his clan…But now, nothing of that prevailed.

_(The House of the West is truly gone…)_ he mused.

He'd even stooped as low as to visit Inu-Yasha's forest. He'd been rather shocked to find it still in existence, though awfully diminished. He'd felt the obvious presence of strong youki in it, also quite surprising for he'd somehow assumed there wouldn't be any remotely destacable youkai roaming this odd place. Every now and then, he'd felt the faint flicker of a spirit at the edge of his senses, but they were minor and seemed to recognize him –or at least the threat he posed- for they moved wide and away from his path. Still the numbers were preposterously pathetic in comparison to what he remembered.

All around everything had changed, morphed into something completely different. And all because of humans.

It was **so** obviously the human's fault.

He couldn't fully understand how they had made this. They'd been always so small and fragile –though he conceded, defiantly cunning, too-, so preposterously easy to break. Everything hurt them, everything killed them. They moved about life too fast, burning away in record time. He surmised that perhaps that was due to their….spontaneity, their rushed behavior.

How had they made it through, then?

Humans were so… so… **mortal** it just didn't seem possible!

And their idiocy was legendary.

He distantly wondered if perhaps they'd acquired some new power while he'd been asleep. He doubted it but, one never knew…Nature was known for its whimsical eccentricities towards its creatures.

He shook his head lightly, silvery-white hair plastering to his face and shoulders.

The fact of the matter was he felt aggravated at them and betrayed by fate. He, demon Ruler of Yashimas most powerful land, had been reduced to an embarrassingly clueless Lord.

The thought made him flinch.

A vision of the spreading forests, the cold meadows and tree-covered mountains flashed and replaced the view of the small spring. For a second he thought he felt a pang in his chest, a sort of needle-like pain.

He remembered. He missed. To know everything, to be the ruler of all that surrounded. Kami, how he longed for his territory, when everything he surveyed around was methodically known... and rightfully his.

He scowled. No more than twenty-four hours have passed since his recovery from the land of the unconscious and he was already lamenting past losses.

He was….brooding, he knew. That just didn't bode well with him at all.

Hmm….perhaps brood was the natural reaction to all recently reawakened? Somehow he logically doubted there were many reawakened youkais roaming about to test that theory, but…

_(It does not matter.)_

Rousing himself from the steaming waters, he turned and gracefully moved towards where he'd left his clothing. His wet hair was plastered all about him, rare white bangs traveling the lean length that was Sesshoumaru's form like strands of moonlight. His once exuberant white tail now hung wet and heavy over the side of his shoulder. His movements, though, were still precise and elegant, the killing perfection…well, a dripping wet, not-truly-terrifying-anymore perfection, but one nonetheless.

Ehmm…back to the matter at hand, in the depths of his mind, he conceded he was mildly amazed. He'd never realized the lack of open lands and the vastness that only forests and rice-fields could project would be so missed… Don't get him wrong, it wasn't as if he hadn't loved or cherished his territory back on the past, absolutely au contraire… but loosing it just made it a teeny tiny bit more desired now for his sanity.

Maybe he should try to go back? Find a way to return to the past?

He blinked.

Whoever said he was in the future, anyway? Maybe the dimensions were different….Was he stuck in some bizarre parallel universe, an alternative reality created by some mightier force to punish him for relenting his father's legacy without so much as a slap on a monk's face?

He tsked.

Absurd. No mightier force would dare mess with a demon of his caliber.

No, as more time flew by and he became better acquainted with this new world, he was becoming increasingly convinced that only the time was different. Actually, he was almost sure of it. He had been sealed, but the sands of time hadn't stopped to wait for him. No, they had flowed down just like they always did around him.

He dressed quietly, slim fingers gliding with precision over the fastenings of the silken materials of his clothes. His muscles rippled and relaxed beneath the thin layers of white silk as the ministrations of the hot water began working their wonder. Then, he reached down for the haori, gracefully donning it and working on its white linen ties. Lastly, he tied a yellow sash around his waist and rearranged his still damp tail over his right shoulder.

Once finished, he moved away from the spring towards the narrow paths that lead up the Sukushi Mount. Swift, measured strides propelled him as his booted feet paced the growingly uneven grounds.

The Sukushi Mount had always been famous for its glorious views of the spreading land of Kyushu. Located at the utmost western shore of the Island, it was so high that it was said on clear sunny days, one could even view the Pacific Ocean in all its blue vastness. That is, one in possession of very keen eyesight…and be assured Sesshoumaru had **very** good eyes.

But also, the mount was admired for its inexplicably picky formations of rocks. All around –and on it- stalactite-shaped stones erected murderously towards the sky. For example, if there were a human stupid enough to try to hike it, he would soon find himself falling faster than a lead balloon…the graphic, painful part of him staked to a huge rocky-thorn notwithstanding. Not only this was discouraging, but also the fact that the scenery it presented wasn't precisely appealing. The mount was completely barren and deserted, very few plants grew on its bordering-arid soil, for so many rocks were around that no sensible tree could start a life here. Mainly weed and some moss of dry terrains took up most of the mountainous background, but nothing more destacable.

It was also a site inclined to sudden avalanches.

In short, the place was a rocky dumpster, only truly enjoyable on winter for it offered the best and most grand natural hot-springs of the area that hadn't yet been commercialized.

Nevertheless, Sesshoumaru moved up its treacherous, ungodly sides without even looking mildly concerned. He even seemed content moving from razor-sharp column to abysmal cliff. The sun shone with a grudging fierceness upon the poor buggers on earth, yet the demon wasn't even breaking a sweat. He wasn't running, wasn't even hurrying….he seemed more to be taking a…stroll. A nice, baking-hot, walking-amidst-obscenely-picky-rocks-and-bottomless-cliffs stroll.

It was just what he needed to make his blood flow through his dried veins.

He had a mind to reach the top boulders and scan the oceanic horizon. He'd once heard that the God dragon Ryou-ue governed its depths and that it's shrine was located on the coasts of Edo. He had never before bothered to check if that was so –he didn't feel particularly friendly towards dragons-, but now it might come in handy. If the dragon was indeed a God, then it would have surely survived since old times. He might be able to shed some light on Sesshoumaru's mental conundrums, and if the dragon refused, well then he'd have to be more…persuasive.

Persuading others to do as he pleased was never a problem for him.

As he jumped lightly over a wide gulf, he sniffed the air. Something had caught his attention. He looked back momentarily from the corner of his left eye in mid-jump. His feet had barely touched the grubby surface of a landing when, faster than a blink, he vanished.

Minutes later, a huge round figure approached the landing, soaring on long, shabby wings. It was a bird, colored like a rainbow. Its feathers wore an array of blues, yellows, oranges, greens…all shinning metallic under the sun's glare.

The bird alighted and turned towards the precipice. The upper torso of a human man sprouted from the round mass of feathers, a wild mane of dirty-blond hair fanning messily all about him.

The Bird of Paradise turned this way and that, keen eyes narrowing to search up and about for that which it was sure it saw some moments ago, climbing the mount. The man-bird had been overseeing the land in search of food when it had suddenly sighted a white shadow at the mount's base. The figure had begun ascending and, though they were separated for miles, the demon-bird had felt the unmistakable shock of an unknown youki spreading from it.

The bird knew that the other was powerful, probably more than him, but four seasons had passed since his last decent meal and it was hungry…**very** hungry. Besides, if the other proved to be as powerful as it suspected and it were to caught him, the added bonus of swallowing his youki would give him enough energy-reserve to venture towards the north...

...two days ago, the bird had heard rumors of the Shikon Pearl's location.

So, the Gokuraku-chou had launched after this new mysterious youkai who'd dared glide so arrogantly through his territory. As he'd gotten near, he'd felt a sudden burst of the other's power and then…well, and then it was gone.

"What do you want?" came Sesshoumaru's voice from atop the landing.

The Gokuraku-chou started and looked up, bristling its rainbow feathers.

Sesshoumaru looked down his nose at the other, contempt written all over his features.

The man-bird bristled more intensely, shabby wings shaking at it's sides. It's eyes shone an unnatural shade of turquoise under long, heavy bangs. With a sudden gust it rose up, thin feathered arms extended to claw at the other.

Sesshoumaru, who had been standing over a picky boulder, merely moved back and dropped. In mid-air, he disappeared.

The demon bird gave a shrieking caw, flying and turning back around in search of his prey.

"You dare attack me," Sesshoumaru's drawled statement came a hair's breadth from the bird's right ear. Two silken-clad arms embraced it's mid-section from behind with an iron grip, squeezing. "Will you face the consequences?"

The man-bird, caught unprepared, cawed in pain and thrashed, only to have Sesshoumaru's arms tighten.

The wailing bird's cry was hurting Sesshoumaru's sensitive ears. The momentary thought of using this bird to have some questions answered flashed through his mind –that way he wouldn't have to face the bloody dragon-. But, as the thing kept cawing so excruciatingly high, Sesshoumaru felt his already-rather-thin patience slipping. Flexing his claws, he embedded them on its sides, but the darned thing's wail seemed to have gone up a notch. Hissing, Sesshoumaru was about to end its pathetic existence right then and there, when something he'd not predicted… happened.

The bird's lowered torso shook and a wide, sharp-teethed mouth opened from it. Hundreds of smaller birds flew out of it like a tidal wave. They flew off and amassed in the distance, darting speedily towards Sesshoumaru with claws and hungry beaks at the ready.

He dodged them.

His grasp on the big bird loosened.

The thing wriggled free from his grip.

_(Kuso.)_

Sesshoumaru fastly dropped, alighting on a boulder as the smaller birds followed him. The fall gave him impulse and he plunged up, the boulder falling to pieces under him with a crash and taking with it a dozen of the creatures.

The man-bird saw the white figure approaching at an ungodly speed and, smirking, opened its huge bird jaws. It raised a hand signaling for the other birds to attack. The animals launched towards Sesshoumaru like flying daggers, all aimed at his dismissal.

Sesshoumaru raised a brow. _(Hn. Pathetic insects.)_

"Enough of this nonsense," he said.

Extending one clawed hand, he slashed the air before him, instantly flying straight through. The mass of bird's bodies that had been coming towards him simply split in half after him, blood and feathers falling to smear the ground.

He sped on, swiftly gliding to the right and the up like a lightening, passing the other. He hovered there for a second, dropping over it once again. With a single slash, he cut the Gokuraku-chou in half.

A shrill gasp and the bird fell in three neat pieces. It's huge figure propelled towards the ground in a gory display of feathers and bloody organs.

Sesshoumaru alighted on the mount's near top and scoffed. "Disgusting…" His eyes swiftly trained away, towards the horizon, the afternoon sun glaring at his back. Beyond miles of forest and sprawling cities, cottages and buildings, the vast expanse of the ocean was barely discernable. He narrowed his eyes, irises dilating. He surmised the dragon was hidden asleep in its profound depths, perhaps some cavern under the sea? Though as its house of worship was rumored to be on the coastline, the dragon God would most surely inhabit near it. Still, the expedition would prove to be a rather difficult one, but he wasn't in a hurry….

…he had oodles of time.

This new world presented a true riddle, the likes Sesshoumaru had not seen for a long time and there was no stopping to his curiosity once it was picked. He was always one to fastly indulge on it.

Smirking, all memories of his recent encounter flying off his mind, Sesshoumaru launched forward, towards the north….

….towards Tokyo.

(-------------)

"So...what do you think?" Kagome asked, biting her lower lip as they entered the living-room.

She plopped down heavily on one of the plush pillows surrounding a dark-wooden chabudai. Miroku sat more gracefully in front of her, bowing low and murmuring a polite thank you to Kagome´s mother whom had brought a tray with two mugs of ice tea and a delicate array of home-made rice cookies.

The living-room's window welcomly opened behind Miroku, a gentle breeze swaying the white curtains and providing the room's occupants with a much needed reprieve from the merciless heat of the afternoon.

He sat, legs tucked neatly under the low table, sipping ice tea and mutedly cursing the way the sunrays pouring through the wide window seemed to be melting his back **very** slowly.

Kagome, on the other hand, was staring at him intently, in hopes that if she looked at his head hard enough, the answer to her last question would flash like a neon sign upon his forehead.

Ever since he'd arrived at the Higurashis temple an hour ago, scaring our poor heroine almost to the point of redecorating the shrine's wall with her miko powers and Miroku's brain, she'd taken a long, painful hour to retell, bit by bit, the case which she'd been assigned to solve. She'd showed him the files, told him about what she'd felt on her first encounter with the child-priestess, even half-whispered to him the uncertain conjectures she had come to unravel the previous night...

Sighing at his lack of response, eyes still straying once in a while towards him, she began dispersing over the table the papers and folders she had brought with her. She checked the black folder again -for what felt to be the hundredth time- trying to keep her weary mind occupied and give Miroku time to swallow it all in.

She knew it was wrong to divulge the case; that if anyone of her employers ever found out they'd probably arrest her for life, if not remove her tongue with a blunt fork -authorities were **quite** efficient when it came to punishing blabber-mouths. Still, for her, the fact of solving this goddamned puzzle and helping that poor kid _(Powerful head priestess of a whole country, Kagome, please remember that...this is **not **your average kid__ we're talking about here…)_ just made her feel the impulsive need to seek help. She wasn't good at mind games or detective frazzle, she just wanted this to be over with. The child's condition had stringed a chord way too near her heart to be healthy in the long term. Of course, this didn't mean the image of slowly dying after a painful tongue extraction, as some black-dressed no-face governmental torturer lectured her on the negative consequences of divulging top imperial secrets to old friends, made her masochistic day or anything. On contraire, it made her rather...shifty.

So, after giving it as many twists and turns as she could think of, she'd resolved to consult her own personal monk: Miroku. When it came to spilling brain's content over something, or simply unraveling seemingly impossible creepy happenings, Miroku was the one to call. He had a mind quicker than his pervy right hand.

It had been a lucky strike that he'd stumbled upon Kagomes mother that morning on his way to accosting some new, unsuspecting girl that he'd probably sweet-talked the day before -a little problem he seemed to suffer ever since Kagome knew him: lecherousness. Kagomes mother had told him about her wanting to speak to him on an "urgent" matter. And just like that, he had turned around and popped unto Kagomes day.

_(He's quite a darling... that is, when he's not trying to cope a feel of you...)_ she thought amusedly.

Now, here they sat, despite the bright heat of the day being in its summit, a heavy atmosphere surrounding them.

Miroku reached out and took his brown-with-flying-storks decorated mug of tea again, gently sipping off it. The cool liquid soothed his dry mouth, his mind boiling with questions. For all he'd heard, he already felt baffled at the case's so blatant "gaping holes" of information. No traces or weapons, a spotless scene, everything was simply…perfect. There was nothing at all to prove a true crime had been committed, except the inexplicably unconscious body of the daisaiin.

With nimble fingers he caressed the mug's surface, eyes focused on his task and at the same time completely oblivious of it. _(What I don't get is…how is it possible there are no witnesses? A place as tightly guarded as the Emperor's personal shrine and **no one** saw anything?_

_What stranger can enter a place like that and not be suspected? Was it even a stranger, then?)_

He knew that in all cases there was at least one person whose retelling of the events just didn't fit, yet here everyone had obscenely impeccable alibis!

Except for Shikimura Ryoei.

Miroku shook his head, brows furrowing. No, even his recount of the deed could be said to be acceptable. A bit rough around the edges, that's true, but still allowable.

His hands strayed towards the black folder that Kagome had left aside in favor of switching the automatic fan, his eyes momentarily fixed upon it's cover seal: a circle of gold that in it's center held a bloomed chrysanthemum, emblem of Japan's Mikado.

He opened the folder and skipped towards page 6. A small black-and-white picture of a man in his forties greeted him. He was impeccably dressed with a deep colored haori slitted at the shoulders, the white juuban peaking out through it. In his head he wore the long black hat traditional of high ranking daishoten. His face was impacid, dark eyes boring holes through Miroku's skull.

Under it, the man's personal information and background was detailed –well, as detailed as was allowed by governmental standards. On the next page appeared his declaration. Miroku read it through carefully, violet eyes interested. The man gave very clear details; his recount of the event was very clean, almost to the point of being…detached. _(He knew the daisaiin since she was brought, he practically raised her…yet there's nothing here that reveals him feeling anything but professional respect towards her…Interesting.)_

Kagome had told him she suspected Shikimura of having been inside the main pagoda when the attack –if it could be called thus, he thought- happened; or perhaps very near it. On the declaration, the man alleged to have been carrying some important temple documents towards the library-and here he concurred with what others had said they seen him do-, but, upon realizing he'd forgotten the papers for the oncoming Kagura no Mai, he'd given his load to a passing assistant and hurried back. As he was passing the closed gates of the main pagoda, he'd heard the scream.

"Don't you think it's too…oh, I don't know, perfectly timed, or something?" Kagome had asked him when she'd been telling him this part.

"Well, it sounds too much coincidental, one could say, but still…it could have happened," he'd replied doggedly.

The man continued his tale alleging that, upon seeing no one around to help him, he pushed the unresisting doors open –an unprecedented sacrilege to enter the Goddesses residence when the priestess is praying inside- and barged straight in. The first thing he saw was the unconscious child, lying on fresh blood. He'd been so stunned he had staggered inside without first checking round to see if the perpetrator still lurked somewhere near. A rather baffling attitude but comprehensible if one assumed his position: such a sight would make anyone's mind a puddle of idiocy. Some minutes later, other people approached the place and the chain of already known consequences began. The thing was no one could truly testify if all this was true for no one saw him enter.

**No** **one** had been guarding the doors.

There his declaration ended.

"Hmm..." Miroku mumbled, lost in thought.

Kagome waited some minutes more, but her impatient nature getting the best of her, she shifted slightly.

"Anou, Miroku? What…eh…what do you think?" Kagome asked again, interrupting the monk's silent ponderings. He looked up at her, and smiled ruefully.

"Well, Kagome-sama, I must say this is rather…alarming." He reached out and placed the half-empty cup over the smooth surface of the chabudai, slightly tanned fingers circling the cup's edge. "As you know, the daisaiin is our country's most influential figure, only compared to the House of Royals themselves. She is rumored to be the Goddesses true child, too...a symbol of the Emperor's divine allegiance." He stared off to some point over Kagomes head. "Were this openly known and the entire Koshitsu no Shinto would surely fall from grace. People would start speculating and the most easily corruptible would look upon the structure of our religion as a lie," he said carefully.

"But why? Why is she so important? I mean, I do know she's…well…special, above everyone else, and that Amaterasu-redi chose her to become her representant on Earth, but…" Kagome drifted. She remembered the little Tatakai-san had told her about the girl having been chosen and taken away when she was barely a babe. Kajiura Yuki had been raised in the shrine, revered and adored as the immortal Goddess in person…locked and feared as someone that held unfathomable powers. Someone that was **different**.

Kagome shook her head, troubled eyes focusing on her friend's amiable ones. "Can't they find another one? Can't the emperor relieve her of her duty, at least until she's awake again? What's the good of holding her unconscious, prisoner of her own temple! For God's sake! She's just a child and they won't even let her go to a hospital to have proper treatment because the Goddess vessel cannot leave the safety of her shrine under any circumstance´!" Kagome rudely imitated Tatakais voice when he'd clarified as to why the child remained locked inside the Jinja no Zojoji and not in a hospital.

Miroku smiled, his mind sympathizing with Kagomes obvious frustration. "It is hard to accept but… there is only one way for a new daisaiin to appear –and only high priestesses are allowed to command the Zojoji Temple-... the previous one must vanish."

Kagome blinked, dumbstruck. This was something she didn't know. "You mean…"

Miroku nodded. "For the Emperor to receive the name of the next Chosen from the lips of the Goddess herself, her predecessor must die. It is tradition, Kagome-sama."

Kagome halted, sudden rage beginning to flare inside of her. _(That's horrible!) _"But-but how can that be so! The girl is sick, cursed! She barely responds to aura-channeling," Kagome argued, eyes flashing. "She needs help, not—"

"I know, I know, Kagome-sama," Miroku said pacifically. "But it is the way that things are. We cannot change that." His hands strayed from the cup and shuffled through the folder, keen eyes searching. "What we can do, though, is try to figure this out." He fingered page 6 absently and, taking out the page, turned it to face the miko. "Have you noticed there were no guards at the entrance of the pagoda that morning?"

Kagome blinked her ire away, brows furrowing. Eyes traveling down, she skipped through the white page Miroku had just handed her.

Indeed, according to Shikimura there were none near the place. _(So odd...I thought the daisaiin was supposed to have two personal guards constantly trailing after her. Then why weren't they?)_

She made a small sound of doubt and took the black folder from her friend's hands. Moving through the other shoten´s declarations, she found that the imperial guards had had to be called for they had been nowhere to be seen.

"You´re right. Her personal guard was not at the doors as they were supposed to." With fine fingers she moved from page to page, avid eyes scrutinizing the contents. "This makes no sense..."

Miroku leaned over. "What is it?"

"Well, no guard has been questioned except those from the shrine, summoned upon discovering her..." she looked up at him then, puzzled. "But no one from her personal entourage."

Miroku remained leaning, chin resting on his left hand. "Yes, I noticed that, too. It is a rather odd thing not to have the alibis from those that were **supposed** to be there with her on the day of the crime." He surveyed the page that rested over the table as Kagome unconsciously tapped her fingers rhythmically over it. "I don't think the police simply forgot to—"he stopped abruptly and turned his head.

"Huh? Miroku?"

His eyes narrowed and he stood up slowly. "Shh... I sense something."

He moved towards the grand window. The curtains were gently moving as hot air swished through the open glass-panes. Miroku approached it. Through narrowed eyes he noticed there was a small shadowy figure standing amidst the curtains, perched on the window-sill. Despite the fluttering movements of the curtains, it remained very still.

Kagome began standing, too, heart fluttering slightly in fear.

Abruptly, Miroku grabbed one swishing border of the curtain and pulled. It drew open to reveal the fierce sun glaring upon them and the identity of the strange thing.

It was a black bird, still as stone.

"A crow?" Kagome whispered, baffled.

The thing didn't even flinch or fly off upon having the two humans so near, like any normal bird would do. On the contrary, it remained nailed to the window-sill, face intent on the living-room's occupants. Mainly, on the shorter of the two.

It was looking at Kagome with penetrating red eyes, as if scrutinizing the depths of her very soul. She shuddered instinctively and looked at her friend who, suddenly, grabbed an ofuda from the hidden receses of his pants and planted it firmly on the crow's face.

The thing cawed miserably and flew up, trying to escape. Before long, it disintegrated in mid-air.

Kagome gasped at the sight and turned towards Miroku. "I-it was a demon!"

He passed a hand through his hair and looked at her, the picture of the pensive. "Apparently so, Kagome-sama. And it seemed to be spying..." He blinked deep amethyst eyes, a strange look on his face. "...at you."

Kagome, taken aback, snorted. "Me? Why would it spy me?"

Miroku shrugged. An idea occurred to him.

He moved slightly closer to her, right hand twitching. "My, my Kagome-sama, may it be that you are not aware of your own...alluring mystique?" he said solemnly, right arm going around her shoulders.

Kagome froze and blushed, looking up at him questioningly. When she saw blatant mischief dancing in his eyes and felt that arm that seconds before had been so innocently lying round her shoulders now moving dangerously south...she whirled around and slapped him full on the head.

"Miroku, you baka!"

"Ajajajaja," he laughed heartily, right hand now massaging his injured scalp. "You sure are aware of your wonderful right hook, at least, Kagome-sama."

Kagome sighed and shook her head. "Whatever," she muttered, moving away towards the kitchen, intent on putting as much distance as possible between her and the once-again teasing monk.

_(What a tactless way he has to break compromising moments...) _That man could only remain focused for as much as ten minutes top, you couldn't ask for more. After that, he became a bloody menace to all innocent young women. A smile danced briefly on her lips as she remembered the way they had met so long ago. Barely upon seeing her, that sage-looking man of deep purple eyes and a smile that could make even saints blush, dressed in monk robes and surrounded by a beatific aura, had downright asked her to bear his child and, upon seeing poor naive her blushing and sputtering incoherently for fifteen minutes, he'd moved towards her friend, Yuka, and asked the same thing to her, too. Without even loosing a beat! What a creep...

Kagome padded towards the fridge and took out the orange juice. While she was serving two glasses, the incident with the crow replayed itself on her head out of the blue. Its glinting eyes flashed through her mind and blended with a pair of very similar piercing ones that had been staring at her from atop the old torii the previous day. _(Demon's eyes...just like the crow's.)_

She walked out of the kitchen and towards him.

"You know," Kagome mused as she approached Miroku, extending a glass to him and sipping from hers. "This is the second time something stares so...oddly at me."

Miroku cocked his head and raised a brow. "What do you mean?"

Kagome blinked at him, lost in thought for a minute. Then, she smacked her head.

"Kami, I'm such a baka! I forgot to tell you..." she halted and, drowning the last of her orange juice, moved towards the chabudai. The heat was so strong that merely standing made her sweat. Her white chihaya and red hakama, though made of a soft material, were sticky and stifling upon her back. She plopped down on one of the plush pillows near the small automatic fan, facing Miroku. Raking a hand through her slightly sweaty hair, she continued. "Erhmm...well, you see...I-I think I saw a demon yesterday."

There was a long pause, in which her words echoed and glided through the air before vanishing, leaving behind the long beginnings of a heavy silence.

Miroku, now reclining against the cream-colored wall and balancing his juice, stared at his friend blankly.

Kagome wrung her hands nervously, eyes averted, a light shade of pink coloring her cheeks. She hated it when he looked at her as if she'd lost some common-sense marvels up her brain.

As the monk realized she wasn't about to elaborate any time soon, he cleared his throat. The sound had the desired effect: it startled her into attention. "And?" he inquired blandly.

Kagome´s blush deepened. "And it was powerful!"

Miroku remained unfazed. "Ehmm...you **do** know powerful demons exist, don't you, Kagome-sama?" he smiled, raising his cursed hand and using the fingers to count one by one. "Just like spirits, ghouls, mononokes, evil slobbering monsters and other countless crawling things that tend to go bump in the night."

"Of course I know that, it's just...it was **very** powerful and...cold and...and creepy!" she said, hands flailing in the air. "He just stood there...**looking** at me!"

His amused smile only widened.

Her eyes, on the other hand, narrowed. She was becoming increasingly irritated at her friend's so recently un-understanding nature.

"It looked human, too. I've never seen anything like that."

This bit made Miroku´s smile falter. He approached the table and laid the juice on it, plopping down next to her. "A humanoid demon, you say?"

"Hai. He was at the Kyoudenkyo shrine, standing over the torii," her face scrunched in concentration, trying to peel from her mind the little details about him she'd been able to catch. "He was very tall, with long hair. I couldn't quite catch his face but," she shivered, "his youki was too strong. He was even able to disappear without leaving any trace."

Now Miroku´s previous amusement vanished. "A demon on a holy gate ? And he wasn't writhing in a pool of his own goo...He should've been melting, not staring at you."

"I know! Isn't it weird?" she said smugly, at last feeling that her friend understood her.

Miroku pondered, the fingers of his left hand playing idly with the rosary beads that held his curse at bay. At length he said, "Are you sure it was a demon?"

"Of course I'm sure...well, I- think I am," she faltered, remembering her first doubts. After all, she'd only seen him for like a second, so... "But anyway, I'm positive it was youki what I felt, so it must have been a demon. What other thing can have youki?"

"I see... Did he seem hostile?"

Kagome snorted. "Hostile? The guy only had to look at me for a second and already I felt like fainting!" She passed an irritated hand through her messy bangs again, flinching when her fingers encountered knots. Looking over her shoulder at the complicated mess one of her bangs had become, she scrunched her face and began working with both hands on unraveling it. "Thank Kami I´m not a demon hunter...I wouldn't want to meet with him in bloody battle." The mere notion made her shiver.

Miroku started up suddenly. "Kuso!"

"Huh?" Her eyes averted from the hair task towards his now up and departing persona. He ran towards the kitchen and from it's recesses, Kagome heard him curse again. "Something wrong, Miroku?" she called after him.

His discontent face peeked back from the door frame. "I'm late!"

She tilted her head, knotty bang loosing itself form her hands and lost in the recesses of her hair.

Miroku came back in the living-room and began picking up his socks and trainers. "I was contacted some days ago by the Head of the demon slayer's family of Koufu-"

Kagome gasped and leaned over the table "The taijiya´s of Koufu!" she asked astonished, cutting him off. They were of the few and most renowned family of hunters still in existence, their bloodline extending far back to the times beyond the Sengoku Jidai and to the creation of the Shikon no Tama. She'd heard her grandfather countless times mumble about how they proclaimed themselves as being the rightful owners of the Pearl for they alleged Midoriko-redi belonged to their clan of fighters. Apparently, they'd tried numerous times to steal the Pearl from their temple, even going so as far murdering the at that time Shikon protector, her great-great-great-great grandfather or something. Of course, that had never been proved –her mother having whispered to her once that her ancestor had most probably died from slipping and falling down the temple's stairs as most of the others did, too. Let's not forget that one can never truly separate reality from foggy fantasy where her grandfather's tales were concerned. Still the fact remained their sudden apparition out of the depths of secrecy was quite alarming.

Miroku sighed. "Yes, the old hunters. Anyway, their chief called me and asked me to meet with him today at four, and it's already half past three!"

"Why?"

Miroku remained still for a moment in mid trainer-tying. His eyes riveted past his bent leg, towards his right hand. Kagome followed his eyes and focused on the purple holy nuno and wooden beads wrapped all around his hand, almost reaching up to his elbow.

Kagome felt a pang of pity, eyes softening. Beneath those simple wrappings laid the stigma that Miroku had to carry since his birth, a physical curse put upon one of his ancestors a long time ago for having committed a mistake...

...the guy had grabbed the ass of the wrong person.

_(A woman of legendary beauty...a man who swallowed a thousand demons...A half-breed that could acquire the form of any human he so wished...)_

Now, ten something generations later, his descendants still carried the wretched consequences upon their right hands as reminders of another's damnation. Of course, none seemed to have learned from that poor old bugger's mistake...they all remained a long line of pure perverted monks!

She knew he'd searched far and wide for a cure, wasted away his entire childhood and adolescence locked up inside his teacher's temple library, pouring over the dusty diaries and papyruses of his forefathers, hoping against hope there would be some clue as to how to get rid of it. He'd tried exorcisms, black and white magic, medicine...nothing had worked. She even knew he'd once tried to cut his hand off, but the curse had prevented it...

"They have information about the demon who gave me this curse," he said, barely above a whisper. "Apparently, he's re appeared."

Kagome drew a shaky breath, "You mean...Nara-"

The phone rang, startling them both, heads simultaneously turning to stare at it. The shrill cry repeated itself several times, before Kagome snapped out completely of her reverie and jumped up, quickly moving towards it. "I-I'm sorry Miroku. It'll just be a minute."

"Moshi-moshi? Higurashi no Jinja desu."

There was a pause as the caller replied on the other side of the line.

"Hai, this is Kagome speaking."

Another pause, Kagome began drawing circles with her finger over the surface of the phone's slim table, nodding absently once in a while.

Then, a gasp. "I-I see...arigatou Kikuchi-san."

She hung up noiselessly.

Kagome remained staring at the wall, her back to Miroku. "It was the prime minister's secretary, Kikuchi Yoko," she whispered.

Kagome turned around slowly, dazed eyes the color of a sooty sky focused on Miroku´s questioning ones.

"The daisaiin she...she is awake."

(---------------)

On a sunbathed chamber, deep within the entrails of the Mikado's temple, a child had barely stirred from the recesses of gold colored-linens.

Pale eye-lids had fluttered and drawled open as if burdened by a century old sleep. Misty eyes were shown under them, focusing on the intrinsecate pattern that adorned her room's wooden ceiling, yet they didn't seem to be truly looking at it. Actually, they didn't seem to be seeing anything at all.

They were glassy, sightless.

People around her whispered, aghast.

The child's lips parted, like a doll speaking for the first time.

"Please..." she breathed out.

The air around her had seemed to take a deep breath, the other occupants of the room stilling completely in shock.

"Please, kill me..."

(------------)

Glossary of Japanese words:

Suisoku: conjectures.

Yashima: ancient name given to Japan.

Yuuwaku Mori: Forest of Temptation.

Nishi: West.

Ryou-ue: Higher Dragon.

Edo: ancient name for Tokyo.

Gokuraku-chou: Birds of Paradise that attacked Kouga´s pack on the eastern caves.

Chabudai: low wooden table.

Kagura no Mai: holy ritual dances celebrated at the end of summer.

Koshitsu no Shinto: the Shinto of the Imperial House.

Jinja no Zojoji: lit. The Zojoji Shrine (The Emperor's Shrine).

Chihaya: white long-sleeved top worn by a shinto miko.

Hakama: loose wool pants.

Nuno: a piece of cloth.

"Moshi-moshi? Higurashi no Jinja desu.": lit. "Hello? This is the Higurashi Temple."

(-----------)

C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a.


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

----------------

:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

-----------------

"…." talking

(….) thinking

------------------

:Chapter 5:Ryou:

Oh, the demon was **_angry_**.

He saw her jump down from that modern contraption with four wheels and climb the steps of the shrine with a jog. He spied her from the hights of the building across the street with a sense of hatred that very few people are able to come up with during their lives. It was the hatred bred from the frustrated ambition of a long-time maddened desire; the hatred spurned from years of coveting bloody revenge against someone over whom no retribution could be achieved anymore. Still, such a delirious feeling could not be locked up or let loose in any healthy way...like punching a sand bag really, really hard or going to therapy. No, it had to compulsorily be let out over the reason of his dark misery. But, as that reason had stopped existing on the Living Realm some...oh, 500 years ago, perhaps? He´d been obliged to choose it´s most similar replacement.

Luckily, he´d found her re-encarnation.

The demon with crow feathers chuckled, and the sunrays were eaten by the depths of his billowing black cloak.

The miko whom had locked him in the past was an almost mirror image to this one. Tall and slender, the once guardian of the Shikon no Tama had been the epitome of grace and skills; holy powers made human. On the past, he´d been warned against attacking her directly but he´d been young at the time...yes, young and impulsive and...too **_desierous_**. His want for the Pearl had grown to an obsession which had ultimately lead him to attacking with an almost non-existent sense of self-preservation.

He had called his most potent powers at the time, had raised his most deadly demonic ki in ofensive...and that girl, that miko-**_human_** with strange soulful eyes had to only fire a shinny arrow to have him writhing in a bloody mess at her feet, reduced to the crow-pieces of his once amazing self.

He shuddered at the memory, vile raising to his throat.

She hadn´t even taken the responsability for the honourable act of killing him. No, instead she had locked him. Why? Simple, she had felt pity. Pity for that poor old deranged youkai whom had been contaminated by greed and lust over the Sikon Pearl.

Pity, he scoffed at the word. Only humans would come up with such a ridiculous notion as that. What was pity, after all? Only the meaningless shadow of mercy, a twisted sense of compassion.

He had been wrapped and hidden inside a forgotten cave on the entrails of Inuyasha´s Forest with spells to keep him from awakening again. But not even her odd powers could endure the passing of the time...and soon he had been released.

His first thought was for revenge. He saw what he had been reduced to –pieces of his self scattered all around a world dominated by humans, flying about on the shape of birds like the night on wings...crows.

His second thought, then was for the Pearl.

The Shikon was the only way to regenarate his weakened body and he would search the recesses of the world if necessary to achieve it. All for vengeance...all for his neccesity of seeing **_her_** blood pool at **_his_** feet.

But this time, though, he wouldn´t be so careless.

With pupilless red eyes, he scanned her figure ascending the last steps. Even though the distance was embarrasingly big between them, his demon eyes caught every detail of her. He had purposefully chosen this location: from here she wouldn´t be able to perceive his youki, but he would be able to appraise her as he pleased.

Yes, she seemed the exact replica of that prietess. She carried that dead woman´s soul, power and charge. This little human whelp was the sole obstacle on his persuit of the Shikon Pearl.

From a distance one could presume she was a meaningless obstacle, easily disposable. Oh, but he wasn´t fooled. He knew her kind very well. She might seem a simple whelp but in all reality she was a strong priestess, possessor of the fine power descending from the direct line of that whom defeated him oh-so-easily once; smooth and professional on the crafty art of disposing of demons.

She was immense power made human.

His heart burned, lips rolling up in distaste. Who knew how many of his kind she had disposed of already just as swiftly as his predecessor had, just as easily as she had done with his spy?

She was an unpredictable force to reckon with.

The girl below reached the top and tripped with a loose flagstone. With a thud, she fell flat on her rear.

The demon choked his darkened thoughts and sweat-dropped. Well, ehmm...perhaps she was a clumsy force, but a force nonetheless. Moving on...

He smiled widely, eyes glinting gold under the swishing mat of his black hair. He knew her weak point though, knew exactly how to lure her directly to his claws...which he would do tomorrow night, with the rising of the moon.

He felt a bubbly feeling on his stomach and burst out laughing, a tall figure on the afternoon, cloaked in hollow darkness. She was just like her predecessor, he knew... too good with the helpless, too soft for her own goodness. And he would exploit that.

Looking at her arrogantly one last time, he spread his arms, bursting into dozen of red-eyed crows scattering away.

Below, in the distance, the Zojoji temple gleamed like a dark pearl under the glare of the sun.

Kagome laid flat on her rear at the top of its stone stairs, blissfully unaware of the horrifyingly graphic death a crow-demon was preparing for her just because once upon a time, 500 years in the past, her predecessor had stuck a shinny arrow up his arse. And everyone knows just how much of an evil grudge that can create...

Raven hair and short light-blue skirt bellowed behind her as she quickly stood up, cursed soundly at her lapse into idiot-mode and passed the torii at a light run. Then, slowing down to a brisk walk she wiped her bum from dirt, groaning at its soreness. Yes, well she could be as much of a kluz as anyone else when in a hurry. Wiping the coat of sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand, she sighed. _(Man! Those stairs are a true killer of composed beauty...Thank ´kaa-san for bringing me that I didn´t have to walk all the way from home, or they´d have had to pick me off the street with a spoon!_

_This weather sure makes a girl melt)_. She looked up at the decidedly clear blue sky, wandering when it would deign to rain once and for all.

_(When was the last time it rained? A week ago, wasn´t it?)_

She approached the Zojoji temple´s entrance and stopped at it´s base.Unease pooled at her stomach and she wished more than anything that her brain would keep sending her more of those gloriously meaningless thoughts that had seemed to plague her ever since receiving that phonecall. But no, as per usual, her head refused to cooperate and she was left alone and dumb on the face of important moments.

_(And this is important, **very** much so...)_ She sighed and once again, ascended the last short stone stairs towards the main temple´s doorstep. _(The Minister´s secretary told me the daisaiin had suddenly awoken—just like that...pop! and the child´s awake!_) She shook her head, biting her lip. _(That´s great news –awefully strange and great!- but still... why did Kikuhi-san sound so—stressed?_

"_The lady priestess has spoken. Please, Higurashi-san. Come as soon as possible," she said nervously...and that was it. She didn´t even tell me what she said or when she awoke, **how** she awoke or -or how she was doing...or anything!)_

"Something´s not right..." she muttered, standing in front of the dishinjoubo.

Taking a shuddering breath, she pushed the grand doors open. They swung back noiselessly. It was the sudden wave of hushed voices speaking, coming from the inside that threw Kagome off-balance. A group of people dressed in Shinto garbs tuned their heads all at once upon her entrance, silence falling like a cloak

Kagome gulped, shyly stepping inside. Suddenly, the silly thought of being awefully under- dressed crossed her mind.

_(Perhaps I sould´ve listened to jii-chan when he said using a short skirt was not befitting a priestess...)_ Self-consciusly, she pulled down at the hem of it. Bowing in salute to the general direction of the crowd with a mumbled "konnichiwa", she tumbled off towards the left.

Wherever she walked by, whisperes followed and eyes turned questioningly. "A girl?"

"Who´s she?"

"What´s a citizen doing here?"

"No, no...I think there´s something odd with that girl..."

"Oh, what a strange aura!"

"Unusual, yes, yes..."

"I´ve heard the Shikon´s guardian was to come...Do you think she might be...?"

"Oh my, look at her skirt! What scant clothes -so disrespectful!"

The subject of their scrutiny blushed and rolled her eyes, walking more briskly now and apologizing profusely everytime she bumped into someone –which was quite often, really.

_(Agh, that was so awkward!)_ She thought upon reaching a secluded landing some passages away from the crowded engawa.

"...and embarrasing..." She placed cool hands on her still burning cheeks. The first time she´d come to the temple, she had been quite amazed for it´s lack of inhabitants. Now it seemed a bloody horde had gathered to assess her. "Mmm, by the way... where am I?" Looking about she realized with bitter dawning she didn´t know.

"Damn! I´m always getting lost."

Pushing herself away from the wall she paced forward, the golden light at the end of the passage beckoning.

All around her the wooden walls and sliding doors were completely sculpted to represent the history of the royal family and their divine connection to the Goddess. Pictures of previous emperors and empresses in their imperial garments surrounded by their popuplous entourage, filled the place. Accompanying these, were the forms of previous priestesses in their traditional garbs, honoring the emperors on each of the stages of Japan´s history.

Every corner was sculpted or painted, even the ceiling, with a complete representation of Takaamagahara in all it´s crowded glory. Kagome was awed at such minuteness details, making her glide through the corridors slowly as she drank in all. Nearing the end of the one she was currently treading, she sighed in relief. Some thirty feet away was the grand wooden doors she remembered from her previous visit, the dishinjoubo leading to the child-priestess´ chamber.

It took her another full minute though, to process what was at her feet.

From her standing position at the corner of the passage towards the end of it, dozens of men and women in priest´s garbs were kneeling, backs straight and hands interwined, all chanting hushedly in prayer. Their eyes were closed and minds focused, all facing to the great oaken doors and what laid behind them.

_(T-they are praying for her...)_

Suddenly, the uncomfortable notion that something was **_very_** wrong hit her full force. _(Why are they praying here and not at the shrine? It´s not normal...what´s going on?_

_I thought she was ok, but--)_

Worriedly, she slid past them tiptoeing, forcing herself to look as inconspicuously bothersome as humanly possible. Given the circumstances, she did quite well. She only bumped two ladies and kneed a man on the back of his head.

"Ah! S-sumimasen!" she whispered fervently to each.

Sliding down the corridor with the grace of a drunken cat, she finally reached the doors. At the entrance were many guards in their customary rigidly watchful position. Tatakai Yiu was also there in an immpecable dark suit, talking rather heatedly to the tall captain Kagome remembered having seen before. Approaching them, she bowed.

"Tatakai-san? Konnichiwa..."

He didn´t seem to have noticed her until then, because he spun like a whiplash and...well, he squealed.

"Ah! Higurashi-san, at last!" He eagerly shook her hand in salute, at the same time bowing and pushing her forwards. "I was so worried I was about to send the kumichou himself to retreive you!"

_(I wish I could have his stamina...)_ She thought dazedly as he drove her past the guards and through the doors in a blink.

"But you´re here now, everything will be just fine, then!" he said in such perky tones that gave Kagome the shudders. _(Yep. There´s something awefully wrong here. But What-)_

They entered. Once inside, the girl noticed with some bewilderment that the crowd only filled the outside. The chamber laid as peacefully silent and grand as the last time she´d been in it. Only two other people were in it beside them: A tall young woman and the still laying daisaiin.

Kagome gulped and paced forward, uncertainty making her bite her lip with a vengeance.

Upon their entrance, the woman turned her head slightly to peer at them over her right shoulder. Long chocolate hair was bound loosely at her back and cropped short at the sides of her face. Her eyes were almond in color and shape, lightly enhanced by the soft pink of her eye-shadow. High cheekbones, small sharp nose and mouth, all complimenting her young adult air.

There was a strange look upon the woman´s eyes when they rested on Kagome, something flashing too quickly for our heroine to catch it. She stood up, the folds of her deep purple kimono falling perfectly in place and swishing as she strolled forward.

Kagome frowned. She distantly thought she remembered having seen this girl before. _(Where...where? I´m always such a mess for faces!)_

"You must be Higurashi-sama, the guardian priestess of the Pearl, yes?" said the young woman in smooth tones.

Kagome blinked, frown deepening. That voice...those strangely unexpressive eyes...Argh! it all rang some distant bell yet Kagome couldn´t quite recall. _(Where have I seen this woman!)_

"Ah! Sango-sama! Yes, yes, let me introduce you to Higurashi Kagome," said the still too cheerful tones of Tatakai. "She has come especially to aid us in these dark times..."

Kagome suddenly turned her face and looked at him blankly. _(Have I? What is he talking a--?)_

"I see."

"Yes, yes, now that you´re both here, you´ll be able to consult and help our Lady!" He flailed his arms distressedly. "Oh! Whatever will we do, Sango-sama! With each second it passess this turns for the worst..."

Kagomes frown returned. Yes, she was sure she'd seen this woman before. The name rang a bell, too. But where--?

Kagome gasped as sudden knowledge dawned. The woman at the bus stop the day before, the one who asked her if she was alright... Also, Sango-sama, demon huntress extraordinaire and right hand to the Head of the taijiyas of Koufu.

She was the daughter of the man who had come to her shrine fourty years ago to reclaim possession of the Pearl. The man whom, allegedly, threatened to destroy the entire Higurashi Household.

Oh.

Kagome winced.

Sango eyed the girl in front of her with the mild look of someone assessing a potentially dangerous ground.

Kagome thought the other looked potentially interested in murdering her.

_(Ok, Kagome, quick thinking: what to do if she starts asking for the Shikon no Tama? Right, look confident and explain patiently it´s really **really** bothersome side effects. Like city destruction, or soul corruption...how about world chaos, too...)_

"Higurashi-san? Higurashi-san, are you alright there?" A male hand came batting in front of her eyes and she blinked. Tatakai was hovering in front of her, dark eyes worried.

The young woman was moving away, once again to sit near the daisaiin.

"Huh? Oh, hai hai. I-I´m fine," she smiled strainedly. "Just...lost in thought."

He didn´t look very convinced.

"Mmm...you called me? Kikuchi-san told me to come, that Kajiura-redi had...awokened?"

Kagome finished uncenrtainly, peering over the left of the man to the laying figure of the child. She was thrashing and moaning, eyes wide open.

Moving lightly forward, Kagome sat at Sango´s right. She was awefully wired at their closeness, the horrible things her grandfather had said about the taijiya´s family being murderers of her ancestor replaying in her contrite mind. _(They weren´t true. ´kaa-san said he fell down the stairs after a long...ah...active participation during the drinking games on the Sake´s Day... Yet it **is** true they want the Pearl, claim it as their heirloom... Oh, but it isn´t theirs! It has been in our temple for more than 500 years!_

_Argh! stop it, Kagome! This isn´t the time for this. Look, the woman is not even paying attention to you anymore, so just let it chill. Focus!)_ Shaking her head, she looked attently at the child in front.

Kagome choked at what she saw. The previously porcelain skin was now sweaty and paper-white. The red hair fanned about her tiny figure like a pool of blood, sticking to her face and wet temples like crimson veins. And her eyes...they were wide and unseeing, glassy.

Now she looked more like a doll than ever.

Kagome shuddered involuntarily, distantly thinking she wasn´t sure this state was better than the little girl´s previously unresponsive one. If she didn´t know better, she´d say her spirit was trying to leave the body. Extending a hand, she brushed the girl´s liquid bangs off her forehead, worry eating at her mind.

"What´s wrong with her?" Kagome murmured, distraught.

"When the Lady awo—opened her eyes," Tatakai murmured, approaching from behind them. "She was moving and mumbling. We-**_I_** didn´t know what to do. I thought that...perhaps she was being possessed, what with the thrashing and all and-and not recognizing any of us around and not giving any response," he sighed. Kagome had the distinct impression that all the liveliness he´d been feeling had been only the effect of his shock. She recalled dazedly he did the same when they met at his office, changing atittudes in a blink _(It´s like he is two persons at the same time...)_.

"You told me yesterday she might have been attacked by a spirit or something so...so I called the demon hunters and you, Higurashi-san." He was fidgety, moving from one foot to the other, now passing his hand through his hair, now fixing his tie or smoothing the non-existent wrinkles of his suit.

Kagome stared at him, meaningless thoughts crossing her mind. _(...and to think this man is our country´s Prime Minister... My God, however does he cope with State pressure? Although this must be rather more stressing than elections. He looks so...flighty, well, what with having your entire life depending of a dummy like me to bring back the Emperor´s priestess to full consciousness... Mmm...now that I think about it, I´d be writhing in my own trousers, too...)_

The man was talking again.

"...and Sango-sama came first. She assessed the Lady was not, in fact, being possessed but merely--"

"Dreaming... I don´t think she´s awake," the woman cut in.

Kagome looked at her, bewildered.

"You connected with her?" she asked in wonder. Only mikos could do that as spiritual powers were needed for it to work. But hunters were only common people, granted, exceptionally agile and daring to attack demons, but with no power above human strength whatsoever.

"Of course not. I just can´t feel her aura as being fighting anything. If someone were taking control of her body, anyone would be able to feel it retaliating."

Kagome slapped her forehead mentally. Of course. Oh, she was such a klutz... How could she have forgotten the basic notions on ki? She let her own spirit expand and brush that of the daisaiin. It was a soft, pulsing red-gold. It wasn´t flaring, or angry or even seemed offensive. It was just there, like yesterday, warmly surrounding the lying priestess in an invisible mist.

"Right, yes... There´s nothing inside her."

"So the Lady is fine, then?" asked Tatakai, still standing behind them out of respect for the powerful figure of the child. "Isn´t there a way to —uhm, help her relax? She´s so distraught..."

Kagome turned her head towards him and smiled as reassuringly as she could. "Hai, she seems to be fine... ehmm... dreaming. I can´t do anything to calm her, have you tried awakening her again?"

"They did. Four onmyou-ji from the Mashimo clan came," answered Sango, waving a hand in a vague gesture. "They couldn´t do anything, of course, as the child, though dreaming, is still in a trance. Apparently, they can´t reach her spirit. Her aura stops them."

Kagome nodded, tapping her chin with her right hand´s fingers. "Yes, it happened to me too yesterday." She cocked her head to the side and, after a moment, asked him. "Oh, now that I remember, Kikuchi-san told me on the phone that Kajiura-redi had spoken. What did she say?"

Tatakai visibly paled, his hands twitching. Kagome blinked at his odd behaviour, eyes moving towards Sango. She didn´t answer her either.

"Ehmm...Tatakai-san?" Kagome looked at him, disgruntled.

"Anou —well, y-you see Higurashi-san...T-the Lady," he coughed repeatedly, not meeting her eyes.

Kagome was slowly getting a **_horrible_** bad feeling out of this.

"Yes? What is it?"

"She wished us to kill her," came the blunt answer from her left.

Startled, Kagome stared at the other young woman, dumbstruck. "Huh?"

Sango raised hardened eyes. "The first thing she said. The daisaiin asked to be killed."

"What!" The word exploded from Kagome´s lips with a choke. "What are you talking about!"

At that moment, the daisaiin moaned, transparent eyes narrowing in distress. "Please..."

Kagome jerked around and gasped. Her right hand moved unconsciously to the girl, wiping the sweat on her cheeks and forehead. She murmured reassurences as her mind whirled desperately. Was this a joke? Could it be that she had—that this **_child_** had said something like that! Cold dread travelled down her spine, eyes looking at Sango in hopes of seeing something that would give the other away. Yet she found none, nor on her or the puddle of nerves that was Tatakai.

Something suddenly clicked. "Maybe she´s having nightmares. Yes...it can´t be anything else, right? —why else would she want to-to die?"

Sango shrugged.

"At least she´s giving signs of consciousness...or something similar to it. When I spoke to Yiu-san I feared the girl was in a comma or too lost inside herself to reach her," the young woman said ponderingly. "But she seems to only be asleep...which is quite a releif. We can use that to our favour, I think...Yes, her nightmares could help us enter her mind and see what is happening..." her voice drifted, left hand lightly tracing the patterns on her kimono absently.

Kagome, on the other hand, sputtered indignantly. Was this woman serious! She couldn´t believe it...the nerve! _(She´s **glad** Kajiura-redi is having nightmares! What in all Heaven´s glory is wrong with her?Here is a little girl suffering under Kami knows what horrible things that make her wish she were dead, for God´s sake! And this-this Sango girl is **releived**?)_ In the recesses of her head, Kagome felt the distinct need to throttle the other. Of course, she didn´t have a nice Italy-sized boot to do so but she supposed that, under the circumstances, her sandal would have to do. Trying to control her anger and not cause a scene by screeching, she balled her fists and asked through gritted teeth. "What?"

Sango blinked the renmants of her ponderings away and looked at her. Almond eyes clashed with stormy blue, and she shrugged.

"Yiu-san told me you couln´t achieve any response from the Lady beyond a simple aura-channeling. That´s because the daisaiin has been too submerged inside her own mind. What we didn´t know was that, inside that trance, she was still conscious -well, at leat conscious enough to dream," Sango said in clear tones. Her features were blank yet her eyes shone with that something that Kagome had only seen in Miroku possess.

_(She´s planning something...)_

"Everyone knows that dreams are the doors to the mind. When one dreams, the mind is left opened for someone to, having the necessary abilities, interpret them–which is what we need right now, I think." Her eyes fixed on the daisaiin, who moaned and turned her head to the side, mouth slightly opened in a silent plea. "She might even be replaying her attack right at this very moment...Yes, I think that we need to enter her mind, that way we´ll be able to know what´s truly wrong and help her...even what happened that day and **_who_** did it. It is the only way to know the truth."

Tatakai, whom had until then remained quiet at the back of the three most strange girls he´d ever had the "fortune" to meet, inhaled sharply and clapped his hands once. "Oh Great Kami! A-are you serious, Sango-sama! Oh, then...the mystery´ll be solved! How amazing you are San-"

"But that´s immpossible! Mind readers don´t exist," Kagome cut in, eyes intent on the taijiya´s face.

"No, they don´t," Sango replied softly, a smile slowly drawing on her lips. "But dream seers do."

"Dream seers?"

Sango looked at her over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "You don´t know of them?"

Kagome registered that the other seemed almost amused and that made her change the slightly intrigued state she´d just fallen into, for her previously fuming one. Raising her chin, she bit out, "Well, excuse **_me_.** I never knew there were humans that could enter dreams. I thought the only ones who could do that were mythical dragons and the earth ogres of the Yubari Mount." _(Ha! That´ll show her I´m not as uninformed as she thinks.)_

Sango shrugged and stood up. "There **_are_** no human Yume-mi; just like you said, only dragons and some ogres are." She moved aside, towards the grand shoji window. Gracefully, she slid them open to peer at the gleaming structure of Amaterasu´s pagoda on the yard. The evening light poured softly over her in a cascade of orange and gold. A strange smile was drawn on her lips and Kagome had the distinct feeling this young woman would make a great couple with Miroku. Meanwhile, Sango continued. "They can create and read dreams, enter anyone´s mind as easily as one opens a window. Pity earth ogres are extinct and dragons...well, they aren´t so common anymore..."

Kagome furrowed her brows, getting more and more puzzled by the minute. She passed a hand through her hair, trying to come to grips with what was being said. "I´m sorry but...I don´t think I follow you. Are you telling me that you want to use a **_dragon_** on the daisaiin, then?"

Sango laughed, a clear melodious sound. She turned to face Kagome and the minister, the sun lighting her hair like molten chocolate and her kimono like fine black silk.

"No, no that´s ridiculous! No dragon would ever help willingly and, even if you could bring one, they´d only end up breaking havoc." Sango shook her head, her tones once again unexpressive. "Actually, it isn´t only the dragon that can see dreams. I´ve heard that if you crush the scales that cover their eyelids into a fine powder, you may use their Vision for some hours, too."

Tatakai gasped, completely awed at this revelation. Kagome just furrowed her brows more deeply, one arm crossed over her chest, the other leaning on it to tap her chin. It sounded like a nice plan and certainly helpful to solve the case: enter the dreams of the victim, rove around for anything useful and probably come out with a yelp and the name of the bad guy. Then, applying the right amount of pressure here and a little torture on the hands of the government agents there, she was sure they´d be able to pacifically convince the wrong-doer to get a way to help the distressed child-priestess. The Lady would wake and smile, the bad guy would go to prison and mope, and everything would be right in the world again.

Yep, it sounded like an awefully nice plan to her. The minor detail was...well, they needed a dragon.

A **_dragon_**.

And we all know dragons just don´t live under the bed or sprout in the backyard, and most certainly you can´t get one at your average K-mart, so—

_(Yep, we have a little problem there, then... Also, I´ve read they don´t tend to be very co-operative, least of all when you want to extract wheel-sized scales from his eyes...)_ "And how will we get a dragon to help?"

Sango shook her head. "We won´t get him to help. We´ll hunt him."

There was a pause, one of those that last for quite some time and are **_very_** meaningful...

_(Oh, right. **Hunt** it. Of course. Why didn´t I think of that before?)_ Kagome sweat-dropped. Ask a taijiya to help you with something and, some way or another, you´ll always end up hearing that phrase.

"It´s quite easy, actually," Sango continued, unaware of her audiences expressions. Tatakai was paler than the colour white, eyes wide like saucers and sputtering incoherently. Kagome, on the other hand, just sighed and prepared herself to be the first-row eye witness of the pronouncement of her Fate. She knew, deep down inside, that what the young woman was about to say was exactly what she´d end up doing later. Somehow, it was always like that when she offeed her help and had to put herself into frontal peril for another.

"It´s better if we go after a sea dragon. They´re smaller and easier to control, also much easier to find... Let´s see, I think I recall hearing there was one hidden near here..." Sango drawled, eyes intent on a far memory. "Yes, it was at Tokyo´s coast but I dn´t know precisel where. I´ll have to ask father for more info." She crossed her arms, delving her hands inside the long sleeves of her kimono in thought. "It´s necessary for it to be lead away from the water, they tend to flee when feeling endangered. Also, we´ll need some abunai tranquilizers and hanone to numb it. Hmm...yes, if all´s well, we´ll be able to extract those scales without it suffering more damage than a bump and a headache to remember us." She finished, nodding, eyes closed.

To say the constant repetition of that "we" and "us" the taijiya just kept pronouncing made our heroine shudder...now **_that_** would be a big understatement which I don´t deem necessary to explain.

_(Oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen, be prepared for Higurashi Kagome is going to hunt a dragon.)_ She groaned.

Tatakai finally exploded. "Are you se-serious then, Sango-sama? You are--" Tatakai choked. "You are going to try to catch a Dragon! That´s preposterous!" And you could clearly hear that capital letter on "dragon". He turned towards Kagome, panicked. "Higurashi-san! Is this —will you do such crazy thing!"

Kagome turned tired eyes towards the daisaiin. The small child laid almost swallowed under the golden linens and her red hair. She had stilled her movements, yet unseeing eyes remained open, staring lost to a side.

The young miko´s heart ached. She knew were her duty resided, knew by heart what was expected of her as miko and sole Guardian of the Shikon no Tama. But this...this went beyond that.

Nodding once she stood up, walking with her back straight towards Sango. Hardened eyes focused on the other´s, squarely. "Very well, I´ll help you."

Sango raised a brow.

"Help me? Please, that´s not necessary, Higurashi-san; my family and I can take care of this."

And just like that Kagome tripped and almost fell face first. _(What!)_

"A-anou...But I thought—you said "we" and I--" Kagome stuttered, hands moving from pointing to her to the other in rapid succession.

Sango just cocked her head to the left. "Iie. I meant my father and relatives. We are all a family of trained fighters. I myself have hunted two dragons of air already," she shrugged non-commitaly.

Kagome wanted to bang her head against the wooden wall. Of **_course_** she had. They were the taijiyas of Koufu, last family of demon hunters in all of Japan.

Kagome wasn´t suicidal –though one might have proofs otherwise. But this was her job and, though this might be The Most Dangerous Thing She´d Ever Done...and for the others would be probably Another Meaningless Bump On The Road, she had to do it. Somehow, it just didn´t feel right for her not to go and, though now she had the possibility to back off graciously, she wanted to hunt down that bloody reptile! Why? Well, because...because it was unfair! "But, this is my case! It is my responsability... I offered to do this, remember? I have to go, too."

The young huntress eyed the miko critically. Keen eyes rove up the long, slightly-scratched-on-the-knees legs; the scant little baby-blue skirt and white T-shirt; the nervous wringing of her hands, the slightly curved shoulders; and finally to the face of a girl whom probably hadn´t had had to face anything more dangerous than a rabid snail with megalomaniac airs. _(Perhaps some minor youkai, too... She is, after all, a priestess and guards that cursed Pearl. I heard father say once that she defeated the fabled Centipede Lady single handedly, and also tricked a river spirit to give her his name...quite a fit for such a girl, but still--)_

"Can you control any weapons?"

"H-hai. I know how to use the bow."

Sango scoffed. "That´s it?"

Kagome gulped and nodded, blushing. "Ehmm...actually, the bow is the weapon I use to infuse my powers. You see, I can´t use my spirit to attack unless I concentrate it in a material instrument," she sighed. "Jii-chan forced me to learn archery when I discovered my...ehmm...inheritance. I got so used to it that now the only way I can command it is through the arrows."

"Holy powers...I see." Once again, something odd flashed through Sango´s eyes and the young woman smiled. It made Kagome bite her lip. "Very well, you may come."

The miko smiled hopefully. "Really? That´s great! How much time do I have to prepare? When do we leave?" _(I hope she says in a few days, that way I´ll have time to convince jii-chan I´m not mad, tie Souta-kun to a tree so he won´t follow to take pictures of His Sister Embarrassing Herself In Front Of Professional Demon Connoseires, and practice concentration! I still got to be able to actually **hit** the mark on the first and not twelveth try...)_

"Tomorrow morning."

Kagome almost hit the floor. "What? T-tomorrow!"

"Mmm...yes, I´d prefer it for this to be over with quickly. There are...other matters that my family has to deal with, so..." Sango said off-handedly, fixing her green obi.

Before Kagome could come up with an answer that was more articulate than her fish-gaping impression, Sango bowed to the Prime Minister –who wasn´t much better off, either- and to the lying grand priestess. She moved softly towards the doors but, before leaving, said over her shoulder. "We´ll be picking you up tomorrow at 6 in the morning. Please be ready." Bowed and left.

Kagome smacked her hand on her forehead, groaning. So much for preparation.

----------------------------

The next day, dawn broke hot and merry.

At exactly 5.46 am, the first rays of the sun peaked out through the horizon in a variety of pinks and violets; at exactly 5.59 am, a van stopped at the foot of the Higurashi Shrine. Kagome climbed quick and sleepily, bumping her head against the door´s metal edge and twisting her foot lightly as she tried to fit her bow and stash of arrows, her yellow bag full of supplies her mother forced her to bring –"But ´kaa-san...it´s not necessary!" she had whined. "Oh, don´t be silly Kagome-chan! After hunting you might as well have a sea-side picnic! I´ll make you some treats,"she´d chortled-; and bowing in apology, all at the same time.

To her major surprise, only Sango and a young boy were inside.

"Ehmm...where is the rest?" she asked unasurely. _(Oh, please tell me they are hidden in the trunk...please, please)_

Sango started the van and drove efficiently through the blissfully non-existent morning traffic. "They aren´t coming," she answered, eyeing swollen eyed Kagome through the rear-view mirror. "Father´s busy with another matter. He asked me to bring Kohaku," she motioned with her head to the quiet boy at her side. "He´ll be coming of age soon so, he might as well start getting ready for battle now."

Kagome bit her lip hard to quiet the on coming groan. A young huntress, an underaged first-timer –he was Sango´s little brother, she later learned- and a mortified miko. What an efficient party... She distantly wondered if, given the rate of suicidal cases she was oh-so prone to be given as of late, she´d survive long enough to see the last chapter of her favourite anime. _(Don´t think so...I hope Kami has cable tv for I sure as Hell won´t live the afterlife with that incognita...)_

"Ehmm...where are we going exactly?" she asked, looking out to see the speeding city move behind her window.

"Southern coasts of Tokyo, near Kawasaki."

"Oh, right..." She´d never heard of any dragons looming on that area but —Oh well, surely they were after a little one, like one of those that resemble flying lizards or something.

The journey turned out to be short and silent. The siblings didn´t speak much amongst themselves, and they didn´t deem it necessary to speak to her either. No kind words, no meaningless assurences...nothing.

...and was she in need of assurences right now. She had somehow managed to survive the night –and her grandfather´s fit of hysterics-without any remarkable ado. She had dutifully spent the night praying and thinking over her options. Yet there were too many things to consider, too much pressure in too little time and she had found that practicing shooting on her house´s small dojo was an amazing nervous attack preventer. That single night she had fired more arrows against Koichi –her practice dummy-, than on her entire career as archerist.

Of course, that didn´t mean she had improved any...

_(Let´s hope my archery skills won´t be necessary today... Sango-san said yesterday that she had everything under control, that she was used to hunting mythological reptiles, so... But she also said her entire family would be here --Oh God´s, let´s pray there aren´t any more unpleasent surprises...)_

Shuffling a little to get more comfortable, she tried relaxing, her eyes straying listlessly to the passing background outside her window. How does one fight a dragon? She had read many stories on chevaliers riding white stallions, defeating dragons and ogres and evil spirits to save immpossibly fair maidens. The problem with those stories was that, though the dragons and umibozu and **_very_** evil spirits did, indeed, exist, they came lacking on the "dashing warriors with shinny horse and sword" department. And it was **_her_** job to save the fair maidens, instead.

She sighed, leaning against the cool surface of the glass and saying her morning prayers on her head.

By the time she was finished, the van had stopped and two pairs of almond eyes were staring amusedly at her.

Blushing, she eyed around to see where they were. The van was parked at the foot of a grand looking shrine that wasn´t situated at the hight of a hill –as is customary in most of them. No, it´s stairs, made of light-coloured wood, led down towards the beach. The shrine was facing the sea, it´s tiles and walls gleaming blue-violet under the morning sun.

Kagome gasped clasping her hands on her cheeks. "The Sensoji no Jinja..." she hushed, awed. Her head turned towards Sango whom was standing next to her, surveying the beautiful structure spreading under them on the sand. "Ehmm...but isn´t this the temple for the God Dragon?" she asked.

"Yes, Ryou-ue is said to live in the depths of the Suruga Bay with his servants." It was Kohaku whom answered her softly, standing to his sister´s side, both dressed in their tradtional combat suits. Kagome smiled at how similar they were, remembering just how different she was from her little brother.

Yet her smile quickly vanished when her brain put two and two together.

They were looking for a dragon to hunt.

Now they were standing at Ryou-ue´s temple, the God Dragon of the Ocean´s home.

Oh.

Kagome´s colour left. _(Oh. Beloved. Kami... we are hunting down a God!)_ She began sputtering, this time **_needing_** the reassurences, please; when...

"Ane-ue, look!" Kohaku startled her, pointing to something in the distant beach.

Sango and Kagome both turned and focused on a strange white figure that was standing still over the bouldy surface of the honden. Their brows furrowed and Kagome squinted her eyes against the sun as she tried to perceive it clearly. _(Who is that...?)_

She gasped. A flash in her mind appeared...oh, she knew that regal posture, that white-clad figure. She had seen it looming over a torii, staring at her. _(Is that--! Yes, it´s him, the demon of the old shrine! What´s he doing here?)_

"Come on! There´s a demon there!" Sango cried, quickly snatching their equipment and rushing down.

"Wait! No, that demon isn´t--!" But they didn´t hear her, by this time already half way down. "Matte kudasai!"

Kagome rushed behind them, heart pounding, eyes locked on that strangely long-haired figure looming on the middle of the ocean.

As she tripped the last steps onto the sand and stood panting next to her companions, the demon turned his face towards them. She had him rather near now, could see his features more attently. And oh wonderous Kami, did she not desire she´d **_ever_** set foot on that coast... A demon on perfect human form, clad in what had obviously been a white ensemblage from ancient times but now looked better for the trash-can . He had long, really long hair the colour of the deepest white and some odd markings on his face. Kagome had the wild sensation that he looked like some regal bird of prey...waiting. He was also giving off that cool youki that seemed to freeze her very soul and, as their eyes clashed for a second Kagome had the distinct feeling she´d pass out any time soon.

That was, until Sango gasped and Kohaku squeaked. "Look! Something´s coming out!"

Beyond the standing figure, the until then realtively calm surface of the sea began agitating, waves raising high and clashing senselessly in a non-existent wind.

First, there was a big mass of unidentifiable blue and black, splashing rivers of salty water everywhere as it glided up. Slowly, as the sea parted around it, the strange mountain-like thing shifted and extended. It uncoiled a long, sleek neck from behind and faced the beach, two glittering eyes looking at them and then at what was standing right in front of and way beneath it, merely a breath away. Kagome looked at it and blanched, feeling fear curl tightly on her stomach. She eyed the demon, bewildered at seeing it didn´t even flinch at the humungous presence of the sea serpent. _(...what a backbone he must have...)_

The dragon yawned, long and wide, displaying a row of teeth to make any swords crafter proud. Then, rolled on its back, and snapped its jaws shut, eyes intent on the demon standing over his sacrifices´ altar.

"Mmm...Lord of the West," it grumbled like a storm. "You called...?"

-----------------------------

Glossary of Japanese words:

Ryou: Dragon.

Dishinjoubo: doors similar to the shoji ones, but made of carved wood.

Engawa: sparce porche or exterior corridor that extends throughout a typical japanese house or temple, connecting its rooms.

Takaamagahara: japanesse heaven.

Yume-mi: lit. "Dream Seer".

Abunai: dangerous susbtance used to daze big animals.

Hanone: it´s said to be the Devil´s fang in powder. Only a legend, but apparently, it was used to sleep monsters.

Umibozu: ogres.

Sensoji no Jinja: lit. "The Sensoji Temple". Located over the Suruga Bay, it is best known for it´s wide –and not high- edification. It spreads and lies against the side of a hill, facing the ocean where its God protector –the Dragon God-is said to lie. Also different to other traditional temples is that it´s honden (the place of the God in a shrine, small building that houses the deity of the shrine) is _not_ inside the shrine but outside. Actually, its a big rock with little blue and white rombodial flags, standing over the waters, in the sea. This is also the place where the ritual sacrifices of food and offerings to the God are placed for the ocean to take it.

And this is where Sesshoumaru is standing ).

Ane-ue: older sister, in old speech. This is the way Kohaku addressed Sango during the anime and movies.

Matte kudasai!: Please, wait!

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C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Before we start, two things.

Number one: So sorry about the delay! Been embarrassingly unaccosted by muse lately. Turned out she ran away with a cat-boy –let's face it, who wouldn't anyway?- so had to mourn her for a week and then cry a river to get another one. Thankfully, hired new one just on time: a brand new he-muse. We'll see how this partnership turns out! (wink wink).

Number two: Reviews. Thank you thank you THANK YOU for them. Actually, I can't "thank you" people enough as it is. Your constant support truly helps a lot to get little old me typing. And you have me such patience (sniff sniff) Gods, I don't deserve you! Thanks again and I promise we'll celebrate somehow when I hit the 20 reviews! Yay, par-ty!

Now, let's get this started...

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

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:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

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"…." talking

(….) thinking

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:Chapter 6: Kyoutei

It is no historical secret that the clans of dragons and dogs were never, in all actuality, on the best of terms.

Ever since the dawning of times, these two encountered forces have fought for supremacy almost on a weekly basis. The wind dragons raging bloody battles with the black dogs for the dominion of the East; the lake serpent Kuukai-kei trying futily for two decades to steal the dog demoness Komoshii no Bara´s enchanted mirror. And how to forget that memorable battle between Jinmu, the golden dragon, and Hafutase Inu, the great wolf dog, in which it was said that the latter bit the dragon's heart out and with it's flowing blood filled the ocean with fishes and delightful treats; the corpse of the dragon becoming what would later be known as the Nishi Island, foundation and center of the Western House.

Dragons and dogs have fought resentful wars for centuries; thus it was no big a surprise for Sesshoumaru to feel so...reluctant in coming. His hatred was engraved on his genes.

His own father had fought a dragon once...Ryuukossei, the dragon of lightening. He had imprisoned it on the side of Fuji-yama at the dire cost of half his powers and the use of his right arm. Not a big deal for any true daiyoukai, but that to him would, nevertheless, later prove to be a fatal mistake when he tried to save the lives of a useless human hime and her dirty hanyou child. But, that was another story.

As of now, Sesshoumaru, standing over the sacrificial boulder, regarded the dripping apparition of the God in front of him. His gold eyes scanned with increasing sourness the humungous serpentine body, coiled deep on its watery nest like the spiral of a snail's shell; the long slim neck, so pompously held high, dripping fountains of salty water and algae. He pursed his lips at the sway of the four undulating whiskers sprouting from the sides of a muzzle that could just as easily chew a killing whale than eat a spoonful of pudding...and lastly stared at those glittering mismatched eyes, so full of contempt.

Sesshoumaru was seriously beginning to regret ever coming here. The ocean breeze hit him wet and salty on the face, making his hair and clothing shuffle to the left and he scented clearly the smell of fish...

He sighed.

By Kami, how he hated dragons.

He looked down at the surface of the honden he was standing over. Tall wooden sticks swayed gently with the breeze; pushed by the colorful little flags they sported hanging on long threads from their tips. The boulder held a wide porcelain plate filled with flowers and candles. Six other decorated plates -this time made of polished wood- held different assortments of what he could only assume to be food and raw meat. There were also some strange square looking vases filled with golden coins...vestiges of the human's tokens.

He couldn't understand what made any species on the face of Earth want to idolatrize anything that smelled like sardine. Really, if you asked him, that was simply stupid. Yet one could never presume to wonder when humans were the topic.

The mountainous form of the dragon yawned and the belly movement created waves that lapped its sides insistently. "Nishi-kei, why did you disrupt my rest?" it grumbled, and it was like hearing a tsunami talking.

Sesshoumaru hissed lowly, the sound reverberating on his sensitive ears like a drill. He scowled at the other, voice flat and demanding. "I seek answers."

There was a pause. The atmosphere felt heavy, the air thickening with suppressed youki.

Ryou-ue raised a scaled blue eyebrow. One could clearly see passing through the visage of its eyes all those battles between the clans being slowly, painfully slowly retraced on its head. The air around it swelled and the sea rippled in more waves. The dragon chuckled.

"Oh, is that so?" it voiced lowly, a statement edged in obvious resentment. "Hn. Never had I imagined there would come a time when one of **you **would seek my help."

Sesshoumaru´s face was blank, but in the quiet of his mind he rolled his eyes. Dragons were always such pathetically resentful creatures. It was no wonder they reveled in the human's heart-shaped eyed adoration.

"I have not come for a petty verbal spar, God of the Sea. I only want answers."

The dragon cocked its head in mild amusement. "And why, pray tell, should I give them to you? Have you brought me any tokens in repayment? I do not tend to give favors for free." It sniffed the air around Sesshoumaru noisily. "I do not perceive the scent of anything beyond...dog smell."

Sesshoumaru flexed his claws, his lips a thin line on his face. "Beware, serpent. It isn't advisable to disrespect this Lord."

In the silence of the world, the roar of the dragon's laughter echoed like the horn of the Titanic. "Ah, "this Lord" you say!" the laugh boomed again and in the shore the three hunting party had to cover their ears to prevent their heads from blowing up. "So archaic of you, Nishi-kei...Ja-ja-ja-ja. You are the rightful heir of your arrogant predecessor, indeed."

"Be silent!" the other all but snarled.

Ryou-ue´s mouth closed slowly, yet his lips remained retracted with a row of uncountable sharp fangs in full display. It had been enjoying every minute of its encounter with the other, so long had passed since anything amusing had come his way...but **no** **one** told a God to shut up. Its eyes held fast unto those of the white demon, measuring. For a second the air sizzled, charged, the whitened crest of the waves evaporating in misty condensation. The anger of the dragon was becoming palpable and this time it made Sesshoumaru smirk. Which is never a good thing, mind.

Meanwhile, on the sandy shores of the Sensoji temple, Kagome was running. Her legs begged mercy beneath her as she moved as fastly as the dunes of sand slipping inside her trainers allowed her, placing ofudas all around the shrine complex. She had been given very specific instructions from a rather demanding demon huntress. "I need you to build a kekkai all around the beach," Sango had said, after shaking her out of her incredulous gawking of the big mean dragon and the creepy white demon.

_Kagome´s eyes widened. "Wh-wha-huh!" Yes, she tended to be **really **smooth under pressure._

"_Don't you know how to create a kekkai?" Sango asked urgently, voice muffled by the metallic mask she was strapping round her lower face._

_Kagome shook her head. "Umm...hai. I...eh... more or less. A friend of mine taught me. Why?"_

"_I need you to build one around the coast," she signaled to the temple behind them and to the small crowd that was quietly, to Kagome´s astonishment, forming near. "People are coming and this is bound to get messy. The kekkai´ll ensure no one gets near and that they won't see anything either. I don't want to be the one to explain this to the authorities later," she muttered sourly the last part. Turning to Kohaku she said. "Bring me the tranquilizers, gas poison and my boomerang. They're in the van."_

_Kohaku nodded and hurried away. Sango pocketed out a stack of slim rectangular papers. "Here, take these," she hurriedly put them on Kagome´s hand. "Use these ofudas to enhance the barrier," and saying thus, proceeded to jog towards the ocean, moving behind the small pagodas and chanting scenario to not be seen. _

_Kagome gulped, head moving in two separate directions, rice papers firmly held to her chest. (Good God, what do I do now!)_

"_Go on, then!" Sango yelled over the dragons booming laughter. "Do it now that they're distracted!" she finished, pointing towards the still discussing demons._

And that's how Kagome had ended up running, stopping once in a while to bend down and stick a paper on a rock or branch, all the time chanting oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy in her panicked head.

She raced back to the temple and climbed the outer passage. Her heart was hammering a hole in her chest, and her knees felt weak from what she hopefully wished was only the extreme exertion she had put them under and not fear _(No, I can't be scared now. I'm needed, I have to do something...) _She could hear the distant voices of awed spectators behind her and the grumbling of the sea God as it told the other -very scathingly, might she add- to stop trampling over his human's offerings. _(These people are in danger...I need to concentrate..._

_Ok, girl, just relax and focus...relax and focus) _Her eyes peeked open of their own volition towards the dragon. It was eyeing her suspiciously. She felt her stomach plummet to the wooden floor. _(No no no no no, don't look at me, don't look at me!) _Kagome´s mind hyperventilated. _(Right, close your eyes, don't panic and it won't attack...)_

She had never tried making a barrier this big, her practice only being with shielding the doujo were she and Miroku had been standing. _(It's not a matter of size but of will, Miroku said... But, do I have a will the size of a bay!)_

Taking a calming, if somewhat shuddering breath, she closed her eyes and entwined her hands in front of her, forefingers raised to point towards the ocean.

Raising a kekkai is a psychic process that requires the most profound concentration of aura unto a specific point -in this case, Kagome´s forefingers- from which it'll expand to cover the desired measure of ground. Its only power is that of protection, whether it is for those that reside inside or those outside of the covered area. It is a wall of aura that, once erected, will prevent any damage to take place in the fabric of "reality". If any slight mistake were to occur on it's casting, the kekkai would be obsolete in a matter of minutes, falling to pieces and taking everyone around on the range of 20 kilometers down with it. That's why it was so important for her to get it right...and why she was gladly drilling a hole on her lip if that kept her from being these nervous.

"Mmm. Perhaps you have brought me a worthy token after all, Nishi-kei," the dragon's voice rumbled. It sniffed the coast grandly, the movement of his body creating two sets of waves to break against the sandy shores with a crash. Kagome pushed her eyes closed more tightly, persistently ignoring the alarm screeching on her mind as she realized she was being the topic of a demonic chit-chat _(No! I need to concentrate)._Her aura flared gently, the soft warmth emanating like a mist from her heart. With a sigh, she let her mind blank...and the world fade.

Mismatched eyes momentarily widened at whatever the serpent's nose perceived from her, long whiskers tensing. It smiled fangedly. "Hmm. Interesting girl..." It blinked and stared at the other beneath it, a strange new glint on its eyes. "What is it you desire to know, Nishi-kei?"

Sesshoumaru raised a pristine brow at this odd change, golden eyes staring back over his right shoulder. In the distance, he saw a girl standing behind the rails of the shrine's outer passage. Her frame was shaking slightly, eyes closed. Something nagged at him, a buzz at the back of his senses. Sesshoumaru sniffed lightly. Beyond the overpowering stench of wet fish and salt, he only perceived the scent of a woman hidden behind a near pillar and those of the other humans approaching curiously at the scene. From the other, he only smelled the sizzle of light and faith. _(So... she's a miko, then.)_ He turned once again to face ahead. The dragon was uncoiling further, its scaled tail swishing, shaking the depths of the oceans like a humungous stirred martini. _(Why the sudden interest, anyway? This is its sanctuary, it must have plenty of human priestesses around...)_ He shrugged. It wasn't his problem anyway. If using the wench as bait was what it required to get what he wanted, then so be it. "Answer me and the miko is yours," he stated simply.

The dragon God smirked, stretching two long scaled paws to his sides in invitation. "Ask."

"What era is this?"

The God remained silent for a moment, stunned. It hadn't been very sure what precisely might the other want to know so eagerly that would force him to ask for it's -a **dragon's**, no less-aid. But this it hadn't expected at all. An idea struck him and in its mind comprehension dawned. It stretched languidly, the ocean parting around him and lapping hungrily at the shores. "So it was true you had been trapped, after all..." it mumbled low, eyes glinting mischievously. Raising a paw the size of a building, it slowly scratched its chin, salty water falling from it like a cascade. "I believe it is the time of the Sun Goddess."

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Amaterasu protects humans, Nishi-kei," it drawled boredly, mocking eyes slitting. Upon seeing the other's still blank face, it sighed, lowering its paw with a sonorous splash. "What I mean is we are in the time of humans."

This time, Sesshoumaru did roll his eyes. Were those news to him... "I can already smell that," he muttered, resentment poorly concealed on his tone. "What I want to know is what year is this? How much time has passed?..." he paused. "You said you knew I was imprisoned, when was that?"

There was a roar and a sound resembling the cracking of icebergs on the sea. The dragon shrugged. "I don't remember."

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. "Don't you, now?" Then he stiffened. He felt a sudden prickle at the base of his neck, the hairs of his tail perking up slightly as if electrified. He turned swiftly.

There was a pulse of pink light coming from the miko and then the shore and all the surroundings were engulfed in a blinding wave. He blinked his eyes open and saw a huge dome-like barrier surrounding them in pink. It pulsed again and stopped shimmering. Now it was as if they were trapped inside a concave crystal glass.

Sesshoumaru raised both his eyebrows, surprised. _(Kekkai? The girl erected a kekkai?)_

There was a sudden whiz and Sesshoumaru jumped up. A large white object hurled past him towards the dragon's neck.

It was a huge boomerang.

The dragon roared -making the others flinch at the pitch- and pushed the boomerang away before it hit with an angry slash of its claws. It stood up tall and rigid over its own serpentine body, angry brows furrowed. "Humans! You presume to attack me!"

Sesshoumaru fell gracefully over his boulder in a shuffle of silk and hair, facing the coast. He watched amusedly as the dragon slithered past him like a huge shark towards the coast, where two demon hunters -by their clothing he recognized them-were awaiting it.

Kagome opened her eyes slowly and let her hands fall to her sides, looking around in hesitation. When she saw the misty glass of the kekkai and no human around except her companions, she almost cried in relief. _(Sugoi! Right. Now I have to go down there and help! The barrier will hold. It'll only fall if I will it to...) _she reassured herself in her head with a positive nod. She tried not to think on the other -more nasty- way for the barrier to disappear. She had to die.

Quickly bending down to retrieve her stash of arrows and bow, she trampled down the stairs and off towards Sango and Kohaku.

The monstrous form of the dragon suddenly burst from the watery shore so near them that Kagome almost fell face first from the shock _(Kami-sama! when did it get this close!)_.

"Hiraikotsu!" the huntress yelled unruffled, releasing her bone weapon as efficiently as an expert throws a knife.

The God roared and slashed it away with a swish of its dripping tail. It fastly crawled over the shore towards them, its form shadowing our heroes like the threatening structure of a moving building. It looked fearsome and angry, its body a willowing mass of blue and the yellow of the sand that stuck to it like fine powder.

To her credit –and own surprise- Kagome did not freeze nor scream. She merely turned around very fast and began to run away even faster.

"Higurashi! I need you to distract it!" came Sango´s yell from somewhere in the vicinity of her right.

Kagome grunted, pushing herself to the side and dodging magically the huge paw that came wheezing over her head.

"How!"

She sprang up and ran to the left, bordering the sea...a very big serpent dragging itself fast at her back.

Pushing over a sand mound, Sango took strength and jumped. She remained suspended in the air for a second, and it was all she needed to fire four darts straight to the God's back...

...of course, it was so damningly well protected by its scales that the darts fell useless like mosquitoes biting a rock.

"Damn!" Sango cursed, falling deftly once again on the mound. From its height she perceived the dragon seemed only intent on chasing Kagome. _(Why?)_

"Ane-ue! What-what do we do?" Kohaku asked, breathlessly scampering over the last steps before standing next to his sister.

The huntress narrowed her eyes. "Come!" she ordered and began descending the mound at a strong run, Kohaku hot on her heels.

Meanwhile, peaceful little waves lapping at his boots, the stoic figure of Sesshoumaru regarded the parodic vaudeville chase scene that was unraveling before him: a mortified miko running away like a twelve-yeared-old from the Big Bad Dog; a pathetic sea serpent laboriously trampling behind her; and the two hunters, trying unfruitful to stop a God by throwing small stingy sticks at it.

Right...

Turning, he began to walk away on the opposite direction. He had gotten –at least partly- the information he was looking for. The God wouldn't help him in his query any further, so there was no sense in him remaining there a second longer.

_(There are other things I need to see...)_ He stared absently at his hip, the yellow sash mocking him. _(I should find my swords..._

_Whatever might've happened to them?)_ An idea occurred to him. _(Inuyasha is no more, then the Fang has no owner anymore... I wonder-)_

Behind him there was a yell, the pulse of strong power, and the sound of a fall so big it made the grounds shake.

He turned his head around.

"Now, Kohaku! Remove a scale from the eyelid!" Sango yelled over the indignant growls of the fallen God. She was standing over its belly, her wakizashi pointing directly over an opening in the scales under which the heart was located. She pinched it lightly with its tip every time the other made a move to stand. "Now, I wouldn't try that if I were you..." she warned.

"Human! How dare you...!" it accused with a boom like an avalanche.

Kohaku stood away, beyond the stretch of the God's neck and where its head rested thrashing on the sand, his scythe held high on trembling hands over its massive gray eye. _(How! I- I...)_

"I-I can't!

"What do you mean you can't! Just push the scythe under it and pull up! It'll unstick!" Sango groaned, laboriously trying to keep the obviously pissed off big serpent at bay with only her wakizashi and a few meters of chain round its neck.

"No!" Kohaku screamed, moving shudderingly back and shaking his head. Fear was written in his face, tears welling at the corners of his eyes.

He clutched his weapon to his heart, as if protecting it. He stared terrified as the dragon thrashed two sand covered paw towards his sister and she deftly dodged them, turning her back towards the oncoming mass of flesh and claws and using her strapped-on-the-back weapon to stop it like a shield. _(I-I can't! I can't do this!)_

Shaking, he looked pleadingly at Sango so hardly struggling and then at the fallen form of Kagome. _(I'm not strong! I-No!) _He backed away, the chained knife falling from his hands in a mute thud.

"Kohaku!"

That milli-second of distraction, that atom in time of loosening the hold, was all the God required to snap up. With a roar and the shuddering of the earth, it lounged to the side and up, writhing like a maddened snake.

Its mismatched eyes glittered turquoise and gray as it lowered its body and head to the ground in preparation. Its claws dug the sand and behind it, the ocean moaned its master's rage.

"You have stepped over your boundriezzz," it hissed, like the rushing of air in a cave amplified. "I will have **you,** then, for food...huntrezzz."

It was at that precise moment that Kagome chose to wake up from the land of the blissfully unconscious.

_(By Kami...my head! What happened to it?_) She massaged it absently as she sat up, wincing when she felt a growing bump at the back._ (Ouch...damn! I'm never fighting Souta again near the stairs, this is getting dangerous!_

_...huh?..._

_...wait..._)

For someone who had been knocked out cold by the unconscious release of her power, Kagome caught up with her surroundings quite fast.

She looked up.

The God was raging at the shore, its body a tense form of muscles and indignation. In front of it, some feet away, Sango was standing with black-clad legs parted, weapon at her hands, like a shield.

In the distance behind those two, the strange demon was calmly making his way over to them.

The sea serpent drew on itself, roared and in a blink sprang. The huntress tensed, jumping up and back. The dodge would have been outstanding, were it not that it was a second too late.

A slash, the flash of black claws, and Sango´s muted "humph!" as she was slammed hard against a dune. Her body slipped down it, followed by a shower of sand and blood.

"Sango!" Kagome screamed, already scampering up and towards her. She didn't have a plan and she didn't have an anti-draconic gun either-which, she thoroughly wished she had, mind...she wasn't good in strong defense charms, but _(Oh Kami, she's bleeding! I need to help her!)_

At that moment, the God turned and slithered towards **_her,_** instead.

(_Just my luck...)_ she gulped, shakily stopping and standing her ground.

It was looking at her, its body stopping, too. It quaintly nestled on the yellowish sand between hers and the fallen form of Sango.

There was a tense, silent pause.

Mismatched eyes settled on Kagome with unparalleled inscrutableness and the dragon spoke.

"Long time no see, Kikyou."

Kagome stopped choking the wood of her bow and looked at it, startled.

Her conscious mind, the one that predicts every movement before it actually takes place, knew she'd later regret this. Yet not even that part of her could fully control what was coming.

The word flew up her stomach, past her esophagus and tongue in less than a heart beat. She cocked up an eyebrow, opened her mouth. "Huh?"

"I certainly wasn't expecting to encounter you again. Of course, your visit is always a pleasure," it thundered with an odd smirk, not paying attention to its audience's growing bafflement. The tone made Kagome´s nape hairs stand on end.

Her eyes narrowed, puzzled (_What's he talking about?) _"I...eh—I don't know who this Kikyou is..." she stammered. "I think you mistake me for...someone else?"

The God blinked, seemingly surprised. "Oh?" That single expression conveying a world of meaning, amongst which one could find: "do please remember this is a **God** you are talking to, human. Gods don't make mistakes." But then the expression was gone and something named common-sense clicked on its brain.

The God laughed.

Kagome covered her ears.

"Oh, of course! How can you be her! It must have been ages since the last time." Recovering, the God lowered its trunk-sized muzzle politely. "I do apologize. It was indeed my mistake."

There was a pause, in which the sea-serpent raised a paw to scratch its chin and Kagome fidgeted, silently wishing she was anywhere else but here. A bad omen was starting to creep up on her. _(Why is it looking at me like that!)_

"No, you aren't Kikyou..." it drawled, and somehow Kagome felt like huffing at that. It had felt so much like a recrimination. The God continued. "Though you might be one of her maidens...Yes, you certainly resemble her...even your aura pulses with the same energy."

"Really?" she said a second after realizing that that should have been spoken on the privacy of her head, not aloud. _(I'm having a chat with the thing that just attacked Sango and followed me through half the bay to eat me! I'm talking to a huge—no wait, monstrous God Dragon who probably has hordes of humans for supper and little maidens for dessert)_ something struck her then. _(Oh, bugger! He called me maiden! He told me I'm this Kikyou´s maiden...no no no no no...)_

"I'm going to be eaten..." she hushed, wide eyed, giving two steps back. Distantly, she realized how big of a mistake she had made by ever agreeing to come here in such a short time, so ghastly unprepared. This God could eat her as effortlessly as one might devour an ant.

The other, nevertheless, seemed unpreocupied by her sudden paleness and muted conclusions on its eating habits. It merely nodded –more to itself than anything- and kept on scratching its algae-looking whiskers in thought.

"Such an odd thing you are, child," it grumbled and Kagome thought giddily _(Ja! This coming from a giant talking snake...har har hark!)_ "I do wonder...might you be her reincarnation, then?"

There was silence. The God stared at her quizzically as Kagome bit her lip nervously.

The silence stretched.

The God was waiting for an answer.

_(And how the heck should I know that! It's not as if I came with a history book attached to my body detailing the whereabouts of my soul!)_ "Ehmm...I don't know—sir" she wavered, remembering at the last minute to be polite –although she wasn't quite sure "sir" was the appropriate way to address a sea-serpent.

The other huffed non chalantly. "Of course you don't. It is impossible for you humans to recall your previous lives...That explains your lack of means to survive your present one quite clearly."

"Hey!" she said, lifting a finger in recrimination...but then yipped and covered her mouth with her hand.

The God coiled and uncoiled its tail behind it, forming a massive hole in the sand. It towered over her, looking down with dark amusement.

Behind it, Kagome saw the small, black-dressed quivering form of Kohaku making his way cautiously towards his sister. He kneeled before her and, tears in his eyes, he began checking her wounds.

Sango stirred slightly and Kagome heaved in relief.

An idea occurred to her. _(Maybe I can distract it and he'll have time to take her away..._

_Ehmm...how do I distract a God?)_

With the way the dragon was eyeing her and what it said next, she needn´t have worried.

"You know...if Kikyou was your predecessor and you are her descendant, well then, that leaves **you**, little miko, in a bit of trouble," it said mysteriously.

Kagome couldn't help but ask. "Why?"

The God smiled and its teeth gleamed like sharp pearls. "Because, you see, she was the one that killed my son."

Sesshoumaru neared the form of the dragon with the rush of a sight-seeing snail.

Upon hearing the recently spoken words, though, he raised an eyebrow. Kikyou, Kikyou... mmm...the name rang a bell. Wasn't she the woman that ensnared his half-brained brother to the sacred tree? The supposed "most powerful miko" that had killed as many demons as the legendary Midoriko herself?

Yes, he had certainly heard of her.

There was something else there, too. Some distant, dust filled memory nagging at him; one of those recollections that one just simply cannot put a finger upon and that he felt was oddly...important about her.

He shrugged and kept on.

The God shook its head bitterly. "Yesss, he was a silly pup at the time. Went after her to get his hands on the jewel to gain power and thus overthrow me. Of course, I told him that was utterly preposterous, but he wouldn't hear me. Far too taken by greed, I suppose." The God sighed like the first rafts of a tsunami. "Pictures in the past if you ask me...but you know how all this blood-bond business goes," it made a vague gesture with its blue paw. "Kill one of mine and I'll kill one of yours. Horrible really, but what must be done must be done." It sighed again, taking the pose of the long-suffering and annoyed.

Kagome, on the other hand, felt sick.

_(Oh God, I'm going to hurl. I'm going to empty the contents of my stomach in front of a God and ´kaa-san always told me to never be rude to Gods because, well because Gods are sacred and old and one must always be respectful to their elders because old people always know best and...and...they are very wise and give good advises to help you avoid mistakes, like my jii-chan did when I told him I would go dragon- hunting and he said "you'll get killed" and he was right because old people and Gods are always right and, well when they are Gods they also control your fate and that and one never really want to mess with the guy that pulls the strings because that might just get nasty and this is literally going to get nasty because some great-great-great relative of mine probably didn't hear her elders either when they told her that murdering a dragon was just bonkers so she just went and shot Junior down and now she's dead and here I am being blamed for something I didn't do and-and-)_

The God stared at the girl whom was becoming progressively the most perfect imitation of a blank sheet it had ever seen.

Kagome blanched as a conclusion was drawn. _(I'm going to get **killed!**)_ And this wasn't the you-are-being-overly-dramatic getting killed. No, this was the literal one.

But she wasn't going to go down without a fight.

With a rapid movement she hadn't believed she was capable of achieving, she took an arrow from her sash, nocked it on the bow and drew the string taut.

Her eyes were blue and wide, dry. She almost panicked, almost lost her grip on the arrow as her sweaty hands shook in fear...but she didn't. Instead, Kagome forced herself to focus and aimed, right at the Gods heart...

...which was, of course, safely locked under many layers of muscle, skin and several rock-hard scales.

Quickly rethinking, she aimed at its left eye. The faint creak of bending wood gave her a confidence that almost seemed real.

Kagome hated to admit it, but she was thankful her grandfather had compelled her to learn archery. But then if he hadn't also compelled her to assume her role as the Higurashi´s main priestess, she wouldn't be in this mess now.

The dragon stared at the girl in disbelief for a moment. Then, snorted.

"Oh, please. A simple arrow cannot hurt me, girl."

She didn't answer. Merely drew her eyes close, her power flickering in the tip of the arrow like a ghost-flame. Slowly it expanded, until it covered the whole shaft in silvery pink light.

The dragon drew a surprised breath, its long tail instinctively drawing about it like a shield. (_A spirit arrow? She can also wield Kikyou´s spirit arrows?)_ **That** it hadn't predicted. "You have turned to be more interesting than I expected," it rumbled in feigned appreciation.

Turning its head, mismatched eyes never leaving the fiery tip of the girl's weapon, it addressed the newely statuesque appearance of Sesshoumaru.

"You know, Nishi-kei...she might be the one you seek to help you understand your...current situation better than me."

Kagome´s brow scrunched, her eyes diverting for a second to her right. _(Who's he talking to? There's no one...near...) _in her peripheral vision, she saw a tall form and the tell-tale flutter of fluffy white.

The creepy demon was standing right next to her.

She began to panic again. _(What do I do? What do I do! I'm surrounded! I can't fire at two demons at the same time, its impossible! I'm not that fast...Ok, Kagome, keep cool, keep cool. Maybe—_

_Maybe if I'm polite enough I might get my way out of this..._)

"Serpent, you presume that a mere **human** can be of help to me?" Sesshoumaru drawled and it was the most unnervingly disdainful, despiteful tone Kagome had ever heard.

Then she thought over the fact it was her he was being spiteful about, and bristled.

"Hey! What do you mean by that?" The arrow immediately changed aim as she whirled around between one and the other. She repented ever thinking about politeness, wanting nothing more than to shoot him right then and there.

Sesshoumaru turned his head and regarded her and the threat she poised for the span of a whole, undivided second; after which he just turned his head away labeling her threat as being as imperious as that of a nuisance.

At that moment, Kagome hated him more than anything.

"Perhaps she does," the God spoke again, eyeing the new development. Though the arrow still pointed at it, the girl's eyes blazed for the other. "You want answers that are now history and the girl is a miko. Mikos are very knowledged in that field..."

Sesshoumaru pondered this silently.

Kagome felt she was being purposely left off.

"Ehmm...if I may?" she began, lamely. "I-eh...I'm not sure what you are talking about here, but," she gave a deep sigh, lowering her arrow and unstringing it from the bow. When you don't know what to say, just deliver the punch directly. "Ryou-sama, my friends and I, we only came here in search of one of your scales. There is a child, she is very hurt...we want to help her..." Kagome drifted. She was rapidly loosing her previous courage under the unblinking glare of two sets of demon eyes. "We need the Sight to enter her dreams, Ryou-sama. Please, just one scale and we won't bother you anymore..." _(Ever...)_ she added mentally.

The God remained silent, exasperatingly so.

Sesshoumaru eyed the exchange critically. A quiet plan was forming on his mind.

After a time, the God spoke. "And why should I consent? What will I get in return?"

Kagome breathed in relief, feeling control over the situation once again slip into her hands. Regretfully, she spoke without mentally processing first. "Anything!"

The God cocked an eyebrow.

Sesshoumaru thought this girl had just instantaneously broken the Human's Most Idiotic Moment record. Hadn't she just heard the serpent say it wanted bloody revenge, most specifically, her death?

"Well," the other hummed interestedly. "That is quite an offer and I would be a fool to pass it up..." Its tone was making Kagome feel **very** uneasy. The God took a great sniff in her direction, ruffling the folds of her shirt and hair. Kagome shivered, right hand automatically straying to nock the arrow on the bow again. Just in case.

"You will give me the Shikon Pearl," it stated monotously with a single head nod.

Sesshoumaru raised both eyebrows in surprise while still, somehow managing to look supremely bored to the rest of the world. _(She has the Pearl?)_ Again, the nagging feeling of that old memory came back to bug at his mind. Yes, Kikyou, the priestess that could purify anything with the power of her light. The Guardian of the Shikon Pearl... He had met her once.

Now he remembered.

Kagome chocked. "No! I can't!" she said in a rush, taking some steps back. "Wait, how did you-?"

"I **am** a God, maiden of Kikyou. Nothing can be hidden from me."

Kagome gaped unabashedly. Next to her, the white demon snorted in a "Yeah, right" sort of way.

A knot wrapped and tightened in her stomach, cold dread washing through her veins like chips of ice. "Please, no—not that! I can't give you that!"

The God shrugged uninterestedly. "If you so refuse then I shall have to decline."

Kagome sagged where she stood, all the previous confidence in striking a civilized deal and getting the Hell away from there unscathed, vanishing like fairy dust in the wind. _(What am I supposed to do now! I can't fight him! He's a God...it's against the law for priestesses to go about killing Gods...) _

Her knees felt weak and a sort of tired dazedness was beginning to cloud her brain. Like the falling of a sudden ton of rocks, all the things that had happened to her in the last four days, all the misery, stress, fear, tension...every little emotion made it present on her head just then and there. She felt as if she'd been run over by a train or a wild bull...no, better yet, a wrathful Ryou-oh-kami.

She sighed. Why nothing **ever** turned out the way she wanted? Why couldn't she **ever** get something done like she had planned! And why the Hell was something **white** blocking her vision!

Tiredly, she raised her head.

In a moment of innocent dizziness, she thought she was seeing an angel. Actually, it was only Sesshoumaru, whom had moved to stand right in front of her.

"Miko, you have the old Pearl?" he drawled, gold eyes boring holes on hers.

Kagome just nodded, feeling numb...or dumb, she wasn't sure which exactly. There was something about this guy that was awfully more unsettling than anything else she'd ever had to face with other demons.

"Have you decided to accept my proposal, then?" the God hissed behind Sesshoumaru, its body slowly untangling up. It was moving towards them.

Kagome stared up at it, her head shaking in negation. Her attention was quickly riveted to Sesshoumaru again when he spoke, "Do you know of its history?" he demanded, as if the approaching slither of a mass of God-ness behind him wasn't at all worth his attention.

Kagome´s head bobbled from one to the other. "H-hai. I...my grandfather keeps records of it since feudal times."

"Feudal times." Sesshoumaru repeated in a distant whisper, tasting his past life's denomination. He liked it.

"It doezzz not matter," the God hissed like poisoned honey, swishing it's body like ripples in a pond as it stood tall just at the other's back. "I'll rip it out of you myself."

Kagome drew back, bow and arrow once again pointing at it's eye. "I-I don't have it with me! It's in the-" she was about to commit another grade-A verbal crime, but she held it in at the last minute. "It's not here!"

"You lie! I can feel it!" The God cracked it's paw and launched down, sharp claws slashing like surgical double-blades.

Kagome screamed, eyes shutting tightly, trembling right hand about to let the arrow fly loose... just a milli-second too late.

But the arrow didn't fly off, and the dragon's claws didn't rip her to shreds of her old little self. There was a strong hand clutching hers and the arrow and the bow string, the empty voidness of lack of ground under her feet, wind rushing through her whole body...

_(Huh?)_

...eyes opened wide, unbelieving. She was flying, high, high through the salty sea-side air!

Kagome froze.

Then she began to scream silly.

"Aiiieeee!" she bellowed hanging from her right arm like a rag doll as the white demon soared her up. She didn't even dare take a peek down.

"Stop whining, girl," the demon demanded, as he dangled her disdainfully in front of his eyes. "Don't make me regret taking you with me."

Under them, there was a roar like that of a hurricane. It coiled on itself, readying to strike them as soon as they touched ground, poisonous.

The God was **not** feeling happy.

Naturally, as Kagome heard it roar below, she began trembling and yelping all over again. Until suddenly, a thought struck her. "You saved my life," she gasped, previously ensuing panic attack strictly forgotten. Fascinating! Can demons save the lives of their enemies? Because they **were** enemies, right? Even though they weren't acquaintances per se, their roles in life made them so. Kagome mentally retraced her grandfather's teachings on that field _(Demon vs. Priestess equals gory enmity. Yep, that's about it.) _

Sesshoumaru snorted as a response in a "not likely" sort of way.

"I did not. I only wish to peruse a matter with you...

I propose a deal," the demon that had her entire life –and I am being quite literal here- dangling from his claws, suddenly commented.

The phrase came so out of the blue that she could only stare at him, gaping like a fish for a few seconds... after which, Kagome began to ponder the implications of starting screaming her head off once again. After maintaining what to her was an incredibly leveled facade during the entire hunting-down-dragon-and-dangling-unexpectedly-from-creepy-demon´s-mercy business, Kagome truly, really, very much wanted to start screaming again. Thankfully, the obviously more rational, though indisputably less communicative side of her brain, won.

"Huh?" She stuttered, left hand moving past her head to grip at his wrist in case he began to...you know, feel tired and that from having the weight of a human being completely held in the air with only one hand!

"Hn. Help me understand this world, miko, and I'll help you get the serpent's eye."

Another roar from below –obviously Gods had supernatural hearing, too, apart from the cunning capacity of "knowing all"-. The serpentine mass writhed in the sand like a caged animal. "Nishi-kei! How dare you challenge me! Bring her down, the Pearl is mine!"

Sesshoumaru only spared a second-long glance at the dragon, eyes returning immediately to his scared, unwilling charge with their previous intensity undiminished.

Meanwhile, Kagome thought. And thought and thought and...well, **thought**, deeply and thoroughly. It was a sensible deal, really; certainly the sort of business contract a girl in her...current situation shouldn't pass up. The God asked for the Shikon Pearl in exchange for an eye-scale, which was a definite no-no. The other just wanted some history lessons and he'd give her the entire eye. Hmm...tricky.

"Well?" Sesshoumaru shook her to regain her attention. "What will it be?"

Kagome groaned. She was sure her entire arm was becoming violet-white with the lack of blood coursing through it. _(Oh, to Hell with enmity. Let's celebrate inter-species business bonding)._ "Yes," she croaked at last, biting her lower lip painfully. "Yes, we-we have a deal."

The demon nodded once...

...and just like that she wasn't hanging from certain height-sickness anymore, but in the ground, over her beloved and wrongly taken-for-granted-until-just-now ground. For a second there, she though she might drop down and kiss it. Gratefully, the better part of her consciousness won again. She merely dropped down, period.

Standing like a petrified tree in front of her was Sesshoumaru, the picture of the unperturbed.

Fifty feet from him, writhed and slithered the angry God, the picture of a murderous, building-sized boa.

"How dare you!" it hissed, eyes colored one like ashes and the other like the ocean, blazing. "You... I will have the Pearl and your head for thisss."

Sesshoumaru looked up at it. One might imagine an amused gleam on his eyes, and one might be thoroughly correct.

Suddenly, he was feeling highly amused.

"We'll see." Letting his youki flare, he launched.

--------------------------

Glossary of Japanese words:

Kyoutei: agreement.

Fuji-yama: Mount Fuji

Kekkai: one of any onmyouji´s most basic teachings –and that, because of that, it took Kagome so long to learn to master-, it's a protective barrier. It's usually shaped like a big upside-down fishbowl that traps the fighters inside a dome. Thus, whatever harm that comes to the surroundings will not affect the fabric of reality. This allusion to kekkai was taken from the anime/manga "X-1999" by Clamp. If you care to know more, just ask me!

C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a


	7. Chapter 7

A bit of a side-note first: Just to get this stated, you'll see that Kagome is a bit...oh...'daring', shall we say, in this chappie towards Sesshoumaru. That is because this **is **an AU and well, she doesn't know him like you, me and the rest of the Inu-yasha crazed fans out there know him. So, she´ll be as perky and klutzy with him as with the rest...until he sets her right, that is (wink wink).

Oh and, by the way, to beg for your kind and always understanding forgiveness (you know, for having taken me like a month to bloody update ) I'll give ye all people...a bit of unconsensual nuzzling! Jeje...

So now, enjoy.

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

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:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

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"…." talking

(….) thinking

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:Chapter 7 :Ryou no me:

The room was well lighted and bereft of movement. The air was still, hot with perfumed cherry wood and the scent of sacred oils. Thin strands of fragrant smoke slithered from the oil-retainers in slow motion towards the ceiling like uncoiling snake spirits. Tatakai thought dismayed that the place looked more like the vigil of the dead than the High Priestess' sick rooms.

The child before him moaned and writhed like a caged bird inside the folds of her golden bedding. Black eyes gazed at her in suffered expectation as the Prime Minister´s thoughts darkened with each labored breath she took.

_(Oh, milady...what is tormenting you...If I only knew, I could-)_

Today he had had an audience with the Emperor's right hand, Mashimo Motosuke. It had been a long and suffocating affair, full of dark looks and shaking heads. Mashimo-sama, an elderly courtesan who had served the royal household all his life, had told him quite plainly what they all thought of his pathetic dealing with the situation.

The Rulers and Court members were **not** pleased.

Of course, Tatakai had explained the promise that both the guardian of the Shikon Pearl and demon huntress had made to him to return a.s.a.p. with a cure for the daisaiin. But he had made the same promise to solve the case for two weeks now and his desperate assurences were becoming quite insufficiently repetitive.

Through his memories seeped the outside hummed whispers of the prayers in the hallway. Above him, the groan of age old timbers and wood planks stretching under the glare of the midday sun.

Mashimo had finally told him that he would be given two more days. If the Holy Child wasn't brought back by the end of that deadline, Tatakai would be realeased from both the case and his privileged position as Tokyo's governor and Japan's ministery.

"We cannot waste more time and endanger the country's faith. If this isn't over soon, the Emperor will end it himself."

And Tatakai knew very well what that meant. Kajiura would be stripped off from her divine protection to allow a new Head Priestess to come forth...

She would be murdered by the sames whom had idolized her.

The high priestess would be let to die, her case closed and ended as the deviations of her unpredictable Goddess mother's whims. And Japan would move on unawares of the fresh stain of the dead child's blood that was never to be known for her real identity, she being another of the many secrets to remain locked behind the walls of the Emperor's temple. Just like her predecessors. Just like all those litle nameless, faceless girls that had been chosen to represent the Great Goddess on earth.

Tatakai sighed brokenly. It was law and tradition. What could one man do against it?

He knew it would eventually come to this. It was his fault, after all, that all these strange things had happened. His was the responsability for the guarding of the mikado's shrine and it's inhabitants; his the lack of foresight to predict a possible attack. It was in **his **city were it happened. How could he have not seen the danger? Why didn't he pay more attention!

Now it was too late.

The wood planks of the walls creacked. Light poured yellow from the opened screens, yet the corners of the room remained dark, the deep shadows emphasizing the stillness.

He groaned. What more did they want? He had hired the best people he knew, brought the most skilled doctors, monks and detectives from the farthest reaches of Japan to unravel this devil-devised puzzle...but it had all been for nothing. No one had been able to break through. Except for Higurashi.

Tatakai gave a wry smile. An odd one, that girl was, another puzzle to add to his colection. Even he, a simple man with no religious superstition or knowledge of spiritual power whatsoever, could clearly see that the young miko was strong. Beneath those stormy eyes and thin layers of too few and younger years resided a hidden well of powers like no one had ever seen before. Or at least that's the impression he got whenever he spoke to her.

And now she was the only hope that remained.

_(If those two girls don't return tomorrow, I'll resign myself... It's the coward's way, I know, but there's nothing else I can do...)_ His eyes strayed from the child's quivering form to her glassy eyes, opened and unseeing. _(How can I find a solution to a riddle that I don't understand the clues of? I know nothing of Gods and demons! It is useless to fight an invisible enemy... And she sufferes so much. Maybe-maybe it would be best for all of us if she were to find her end now...)_

The girl gave a choked whimper and pleaded again quietly to the air. "Kill me...please..."

The man closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. _(...it is what she wants.)_

Through the haze of his despair, there came the sound of the chamber's door opening. Quiet steps made their way towards them accompanied by the rythmic swish of long robes. "Ah, I see there is still no change in our Lady."

The voice was soft and clear, that of a grown man who had done much and regretted too little. Tatakai turned and stood up. He gave a small bow in aknowledgement of the new comer. The Priestess' right hand, Prime Delegate and President of the shrine's shoten. "Shikimura-san."

The other bowed too. "Prime minister. It is good to see you again."

"What brings you here? I thought you had been summoned to remain in Court until this whole business was over."

The man smiled. Tatakai could not read much in those cold grey eyes. "I have been given permission, do not worry. I wouldn't dare to go against our Lord Emperor's command." He moved swiftly past Tatakai and stood at the child´s side, head down, eyes on her. "I was worried for her, of course. I have been praying fervently ever since all this happened. She is my mistress, the little girl I raised like my own daughter. How can I not suffer when she is so distressed?" Shikimura sighed. "What a terrible tragedy this is..."

His tone was contrite, his saddened face seemed true enough. Tatakai just couldn´t buy them. _(Then again, he was never a man of much feeling... I am being too prejudiced... Yes, he is her most trusted friend, after all. Who am I to judge him? I barely know him.)_

"Yes, indeed. I don´t understand who would be so heartless to-to..." he made a vague hand gesture towards the daisaiin's lying form. With each passing day, he found more and more difficult to speak of such a crime aloud. _(Are there even words to describe this?)_

"I do not believe this is a matter of heart, or lack of it thereof."

Tatakai eyed him woodenly. "What do you mean?"

Shikimura Ryoei remained silent, choosing instead to kneel and bow before the presence of the Head Priestess. "Much is being rumored in Court of how all of this will end..." he made a pause to gesture a blessing over the girl's form with his hands. "I fear the Emperor will make some...rushed decission that might harm her."

The minister fidgeted slightly. Shikimura had just voiced his previous thoughts. For a moment, the idea that the other might know more than it appeared crossed his mind. _(I must be careful, my chat with the Members must remain private...)_ "He would never do such a thing..." He tried but without real conviction, just for property's sake.

Shikimura turned to face him, gray eyes a notch darker. "Of course."

At that moment, the door opened again. The captain of the priestess' guards entered. He walked the length that separated them with long, sure strides and knelt on one knee a respectful twenty paces from them. "Shoten-sama, Kochii-san from the district police is looking for you."

"Ah," said Shikimura, standing up and dusting lightly his deep blue hakama and fixing the grey outer robe. "I see my coming here was not a secret after all." He passed the now standing captain and stunned prime minister. "Please, inform Kochii-san I'll be with him shortly."

"Yes, chigo-sama." And the guard left.

_(So he is still being questioned for the incident. He was the one alleged to having heard her scream first; the first to arrive at the praying pagoda... the first to see her lying uncosnscious in a puddle of blood..._

_...yet he took quite a while in calling for help. Actually, he didn't cry for help at all, others that later came did...)_ Tatakai mentally pondered.

Silence permeated the room for an instant. The scent of sacred perfumes made the environment stuffed, unbereable. The hushed mutter of spoken prayers came from the hall through the thick wooden doors and walls like words whispered from another world. Shikimura approached the minister with a blank air that was awfully difficult to identify. Worry? Reserve? Cunning?... _(He is not realiable, yet he wasn't found guilty of anything else beyond lack of rapid situation judgement... Which he countered by saying the terrible shock it was for him to see her thus. He hadn't been able to act, 'paralized' was the actual word he used, I think... Paralized... _

_(He doesn't seem someone to be so easily shocked, paralized or even saddened at all.)_

"I would like to know...is it true the rumour that says the Shikon no Tama's guardian is trying to help our Lady after all? Have you contacted her, then?" Shikimura enquired of him blandly.

Tatakai blinked, coming to grips with sudden reality. He doubted for a moment how-**what**-to answer exactly. It had been Shikimura´s idea to contact the miko of the Higurashi shrine, despite all the astonished looks and horrified negations this idea had raised barely it had been given. Apparently, every priest and scholar of remotely basic studies knew perfectly well the legend of destruction that laid hidden in the nature of the fabled Pearl. For one of them, the Head Priestess' right hand no less, to even suggest the involvement of such a frightful object or any of its relations was an outrage. But Tatakai was a simple man, a politician whom believed in the gods and prayers as far as the organization of once-a-year religious festivals went, so Shikimura Ryoei's idea had snagged his attention wholy. Hope warred victory and caution was thrown to the winds.

But he did not venture to seek the girl right away. At the time he hadn't had the slightless clue of what the Shikon Pearl meant, or who exactly was its guardian. Nevertheless, Shikimura taught him well. Or so he had thought.

He had been so lost, so desperate to find a solution that he had hindered all councel and had plunged directly into the other's idea. Against the other priests orders, he had grasped the light that this new sage suggestion shedded like a last resource.

Yet now he doubted the intentions behind the shoten's advise, and his own wisdom in so blindly carrying it out. Shikimura was a man, Tatakai thought, who savored his suggestions being carried out promptly and with no questions asked above all else. That just didn´t give one much confidence.

"I have spoken to her, yes. She has promised to help," he halted, "with what is in her power to do."

Shikimura formed a quiet smile. His eyes were unreadable, half hidden under thick eyebrows and lashes. He didn´t ask what the other meant, didn't enquire about the Pearl at all. Merely stated, "Good. That is good news, indeed. She'll be a powerful ally in the solving of this...abominous act."

With that he gave a last, simple bow, turned and left.

The other's observation played uncomfortably at Tatakai's nerves, eroding away his former thought of easily-formed prejudices. _(I don't think he is a person to trust so easily after all...there is something in him that just--that I can't place exactly.)_

-------------------

Ten minutes, an hour, half the day...God only knew how much the battle was lasting. For Kagome, it was no easy fit to try pinpointing the time -or even to whom the winning odds were falling. She was huddled on all fours behind some wild bush formations at the base of a sand dune. Her eyes strayed constantly towards the combatants. Truthfully, she had no idea what was going on. She perceived nothing but the sharp clashes of youki, blurred colored shadows of body movement and the once-in-a-while roar or pained blare of the God Dragon´s voiced ire. _(I can't see a damned thing! That white demon is so fast, but Ryou no Kami doesn't fall behind either...)_

The only thing she was sure of was that Ryou-ue had a sort of barrier all around him. She'd caught a glimpse of it when the other had tried slashing it with naked claws and had bounced off instead. The barrier had shimmered green and blue, which meant its energy was surely, and as is usually wont to be, being derived from something external, probably under the depths of the sea, not the God itself -whose youki was a misty white. _(But where? What is he drawing the energy from? If I could only know that, maybe-maybe I could stop it...then its defenses would be down and we might strike...)_

She turned from the battle towards the sea. The waters were unnaturally still and deep blue, as if under the veil of a night storm that wasn't unfurling yet. Diligently, she scanned every inch of its extension. Nothing but painted waters and tall boulders. _(It has to be something living! The only way to draw strength is of something similar in substance or-or nature to the thing that needs the energy and maybe even more powerful..._

_But what is stronger than the God of the Sea...?)_

There was a huge explosion of sand and rock as the tail of the dragon hit Sesshoumaru straight on the back and he plummeted down. The fall made a deep hole like a small meteorite.

The dragon laughed , mismatched eyes glinting with adrenaline-infuced madness. "Not so arrogant now, milord dog?"

A second-long pause. Someone 'tsked' derisively behind it.

The dragon spun around, startled. Sesshoumaru was a hair's breath away, dirty yet still not fully disarrayed. "Shut up already. I've had enough of this."

"Wha-! But how-!"

The other jerked back and weaved a whip of poison out of thin air. Consecutive slashes over the dragon's head, but the barrier prevented any damage. The blows were still so strong that it obliged the God the move back or be weighed down by them.

Around, the earth shook and the dunes crumbled with the force of the blows over the God's still intact defenses. The wooden shrine in the near distance trembled precariously on its earthern platform, pieces of its wood-craft and masonry beginning to tumble down, rolling to the beach.

Kagome shivered and backed against the bushes. Tons of sand fell over her with each hit, slash or blow the demons exchanged. Something at the back of her mind began to take shape, eyes focused on the waters of the sea as they remained immobile.There was a quietness there, a strangeness not befitting an ocean when its master was so enraged.

_(That's it!)_ She smacked a hand noisily over her forehead. _(Of course, it's so obvious... 'What is stronger than the God of the Sea? What shares its nature! What gives a God substance!': The sea itself!)_ "I am such a baka! I don't forget my head at home because its attached to my neck..."

Not thinking, she scrambled from her hideout towards the shore. Big mistake... the battle was just in front of her.

"Oh, crap!" She dodged the dragon's on-coming swishing tail and rocky rubble, rolling like a mad woman on the sandShe flinched in disgust when she felt sand pouring inside her shorts, itching its way along her legs.

Another blast, the demon's green whip slashing like lightening through the air, centimetres over her head, making her hair blow in a dirty disarray. "Hey, watch it!" she yelled at him -or the place where he'd been, for he'd vanished once again to reappear hovering over a dune. Of course, he didn't pay her a minimun courtesy of attention.

The one that **did **pay her some rather unwanted attention after her rather silly yell was the dragon, who spun around and made a quick attempt at grabbing her.

Sometimes, she deeply resented her lack of fore-thought.

She ran, as fast as her tired body could, Ryou-ue hot on her heels.

Sesshoumaru felt a little incensed at having lost the other's battle focus. With a quick flying launch, he spun like silver thread on the air and kicked the dragon's head from the front, hard. "Don't turn your back on me."

"Do-g," the startled, angry God hissed. "Get away!" It opened massive jaws; power swelled and crackled inside it in a wave of blue light. Amassing, stronger and stronger, like a blue ball of--

Kagome's feet froze in fear, eyes gauging out of their sockets. _(He's going to fire his youki! Its going to swallow us all!_

_Move move **move**!) _She begged at her legs, which didn't obey her because they were probably off to some tropical paradise of their own next to her brain, heart and the rest of her terrified internal assets.

There was a moment's pause, the deep breath before the killing plunge. Then, the dragon fired.

She had a second-long vision of her body exploding like a hand granade in sparks of blue with fleshy bits of red in it, so she did the only thing that her unresponsive body allowed her. She ducked...

...then felt a strong tug at the back collar of her shirt, her body thriving in the weightlessness of being rushed up in the whipping wind. And once again she was dangling like a rag doll from the hand of a certain displeased white demon.

An instant later, a booming sound to the left and below them, the dragon's youki ball having exploded like a bomb and swallowed half the bay with it.

"Didn't I tell you to stay hidden?"

She looked up at his face, gawking in stunned bewilderment. "I- I...Hey, don't talk to me like that!" she quipped at him, grateful and simultameously annoyed at having him rescue her. Again. "I know what's keeping his barrier up. I was just moving to try to... disarm it or something then I can shoot an arrow to his eye and get the scale and this stupid fight can stop. It's dangerous and someone might get hurt if this keeps up..."

For a minute there, Sesshoumaru stared at the young miko as if she'd suddenly sprang a second head right in front of his eyes. Was this...this...**girl **implying that he needed **her **help or protection to fight a simple serpent? That he, son of a Dog General, couldn't dispose of a mere God without some silly human girl prancing about with her useless little shinny arrows to save the day!

His left eye twitched.

Kagome saw it twitch, and stopped talking with a hard swallow. "Ehrmm..."

And that's as far as she got because he tossed her to the side like an unwanted lead balloon. The problem was, she was several feet off the ground.

She knew the fall was going to hurt.

"Aiiieeeee..." her screaming figure plummeted down, legs and arms batting futily against gravity, her body falling with a painful 'thud' over a heap of bushes and removed sand.

For the whole span of two minutes she couldn't move, couldn't even properly breath. Her chest ached, her head throbbed and she was sure the rest of her was already dead and broken because it hummed like hammers hitting rock.

_(That..._

_...bastard...)_ her mind formed in grunted tones. Even her inner voice was cracked.

Rolling slowly, she laid on her side, letting the waves of pained dizziness and haze recede.

Meanwhile, Sesshoumaru gloried in a recently reawakened feeling. He was feeling angry...seething, actually. How dare she? How dare she even suggest he couldn't fight a dragon on his own? That he might need her to figure a way to pierce that useless little excuse for a shield the other had conjured like the bloody coward that it was! It was--it was preposterous! Outrageous!

Phantom tendrils of ire slithered inside him. Starting from the pit of his stomach, they uncoiled and moved, ensnaring his lungs, heart, making his hands fist and head swim with that heady sensation he had come to know so well over the decades. The need to rip and kill.

But he would not loose his mind, he would not allow himself to fall pray so easily for the lust for slaughter. Taking a deep breath, he let rage wash through him like cleansing rain, alerting his senses and enhancing his powers. This is one the things he had come to miss so long ago, this crave for battle that spilled in his gut like warm honey mead.

He'd show her, alright. He'd show her how stupid her assumption had been. Now that the dragon had committed the idiocy of letting a strong power surge weaken his grip on the shield, as it was bound to happen with these things, he had the upper hand.

He had been fighting to achieve the dragon God's eye before. Now, he wanted its heart. His own power sizzled and hissed like cool fire, drawing out, underneath his skin and then-

-he sprang, slipping easily under the now low guard of the dragon, gliding the tip of his venomous claws into the quivering shield, just over its chest where the energy recquired to mantain the protection accumulated. He knew this because that's how it worked for him too, where he as coward on fights as to recquire protection. The dragon had used in one power blow too much youki; now he'd need some minutes to regain his previous control. Now it was the perfect time to destoy it.

Four perfect lines drew horizonatlly over its heart and in just one blink, the shield burst and fell to pieces like shards of a broken glass. Unnoticed, the sea returned to its previous raging self.

Yet a surprisingly rapid movement came from the outraged sea serpent. A giant paw was brought up and thrust in a fist down towards Sesshoumaru's head. He ducked but his shoulder was graced, the bristling scales cutting through fabric and skin as easily as sharp blades. He hissed, grinding his teeth but without missing a beat, spun around and thrashed his whip in a half arch, effectively wrapping it around the huge muzzle. With a mighty yank, the serpent toppled down, writhing in the sand.

He touched down over its neck, one foot firmly pushing the head down by stepping over the right cheek, the other constricting its esophagus. With both hands he firmly held the venomous whip, taut, its string slowly corroding the dragon's scales. Sesshoumaru smiled faintly, feeling the grumbled protests of his prey resonating under his feet and smelling the faint trace of his poison in the hot sea air. One blue scaled eye focused on him in a wince with what could only be described as extreme hatred. All around was a sort of heavy silence, and he momentarily revelled in it. The other's roars had been grating on his last nerve.

Then he heard a close shuffle, at the edge of his mind felt the presence of two approaching beings. Humans. Tilting his head slightly to the left, he saw through the corner of his eye the wobbly figures of two hunters scramblig towards them. He recognized them, of course, as the beat up woman and the silly, cowardly boy that accompanied the miko.

There was a sudden strong yank at the end of his whip, two sets of claws slashing towards him with his momentary distraction, but he avoided them by giving a quick somersault backwards in midair, pushing with him half the body of the serpent up...and then letting it plunge down, hard. The dragon's scalp gave a broken, massive 'thud' against the sand. Nevertheless, it surprisingly remained conscious. Obviously pained and not writhing around half as much, but conscious.

"Don't attempt that again or I'll behead you," Sesshoumaru warned, resuming his previous position on the dragon's upper neck, feet pressing down hard.

Dazed waves of ired sound resonating under him was the only answer he received.

Slowly, Sango made her way towards them slung heavily on her side over an unsteady walking Kohaku. He had wrapped some ripped pieces of his upper battle costume around her mid back, where the damage received had been the greatest, to stop the bleeding. But with every step she could still feel blood soak through, the wound burning, yet she tried mightily not noticing too much.

The dragon God was down. Now was the perfect opportunity for them to grab the scale and get the Hell away from here. It was awefully disconcerting the way things hadn't turned out the way she'd planned.

She didn't want to think too much on the other little problem. (_How am I going to get past that demon...?_) She'd seen what he had done to Kagome, and she was in no shape for another scuffle. _(I might as well try tricking him out.)_

"Kohaku, please...help me get as near as possible and ready your tantou. Put it in my back, inside the sash...and no fast movements. That'd give us away," Sango whispered, gripping her brother's arm and manuvering them both to approach the fallen God's head. "If something goes wrong, I want you to get as far away from here as possible. You know how to drive, take the van and Higurashi and get the Hell away, you hear?"

"What! No! I can't leave you behind!" the boy cried, paling visibly at the implication. His fingers worked unsteadily in the red braided thread that ornamented the short knife, hiding it in her back sash.

"Don't be silly, there's no other way!" she warned, hazel eyes stern. "When I tell you to, run."

Without another word, she raised her head and prepapred to address Sesshoumaru. She wasn't sure what she'll say to convice him to let her plunder his obvious prey, but she'll try. She had to...

...Only she ended up gaping in horrified astonishment as said demon bend down in one knee, right hand faintly retracting back and protruding a set of very acid looking claws, then unceremoniously smacking it with no more ado than a flash right into the dragon's eye socket. A gurgle sound, a gasp -from her brother-, a booming roar...and he held a blue eye in his now green bloodied hand. (_O-k. Let's just forget conversation, then...Gods, that's-)_ she flinched, bile in her throat (-_disgusting. Yuck!)_

Sesshoumaru studied the squishy orb he held, left arm tightening on the leash he still had taut on the muzzle of the moaning, whimepring beast at his feet. It was the size of a kemari ball, soft and light turquoise in the iris, oozing copious amounts of water and blood from the severed veins that hung limply like dead vines. It was a rather disgusting sight alright, but he now possessed his end of the bargain safe and sound. Only he wasn't fully satisfied yet.

He still felt the need to prove to that silly slip of a girl that her assumptions had been ludicruous. He'd kill the God with his own bare hands.

"Demon! Let the dragon go," yelled Sango, as strongly as her sick stomach would allow. She had seen the flash in his golden eyes, recognizing it from personal experience.

Sesshoumaru eyed her blankly. "Why? I took it down, its life is now mine."

"No!" came a strangled cry from ahead of them. He turned his head and looked up. The miko was wobbily making her way towards them. She had one arm limp, the other wrapped around its shoulder to keep it from dangling too much. Her bow and stash of arrows hanging askew at her back. (_She's twisted it, probably broke it. Humans are still as fragile as I remember them.)_

Kagome staggered forward, pale and sweating. The heat of the blaring sun, the sand that covered her from head to foot, the many scratches and bumps on her body making her wish that she'd just black out and be done with consciousness. Still, while she remained awake she wouldn't allow a useless murder to be committed so lightly. "You promised to give us the eye. You have it, there's no sense in killing him now! He was just...I'm sure Ryou-oh-kami was just defending himself!" A lie, but with the little time she had to gather her damaged wits, it was all she could come up with.

Sesshoumaru scoffed, right foot pushing hard over the serpent's external breathing cavity. There was a long drawn moan, but beside that, nothing too much. Apparently, the God was on the brink of blacking out itself any minute now. Kagome thought distantly that some were so lucky. _(Mainly those that are safely tucked at home, watching anime and having lunch...) _

"Defending? Was it also defending itself when it chased you in search of the Pearl, girl?"

She stammered, blushing a faint pink. "Well no, but--Look! Why kill it anyway? What's in it for you?"

"You tell me. Weren't you the one that assumed I couldn't fend off for myself against it?"

"I did not **say **that! You twisted my words!" she cried, incensed. "I was just trying to help you so we wouldn't end up in this situation!"

"Worried for the safety of your God?" Sesshoumaru drawled, deprecating. "You priests idolize serpents that cannot even fight properly. How stupid of you."

She gaped at him then, exasperated. "And what gives **you **the right to judge me, anyway? If you kill it you're nothing more than a heartless, cold bloodied murderer!"

Sesshoumaru smirked in a 'Is that supposed to stop me?' kind of way. He raised his hand, claws once again at the ready, poison swelling at his fingertips, dripping and scalding the dragon's cheek. His eyes never left hers, either.

But he stopped. He saw her quick movement, heard the creak of wook, an arrow being retracted and taut on the bow in a matter of seconds. His eyes held fast unto those of Kagome, measuring.

"I warn you," she whispered loud enough for him to hear. "Let it go or I'll shoot."

He did let go...but only to reappear like a looming shadow over her, one hand wrapped around her throat. He lifted her up as if she were no more than an empty plastic bag, his eyes bearing holes on hers. "Do you dare point that useless toy at me?" he breathed the words to her face like ice chips. "Don't be so cocky, child, you don't know with whom you are messing."

Kagome choked, air tightly shut inside and outside of her, the passage in between that allowed normal, life-giving breath being completely shut. She couldn't draw breath, couldn't expell it, and already her eyes were watering and drifting shut, darkness consuming the edges of her mind.

She raised one quivering arm, sweaty palm covering his wrist in a loose grip. She frantically searched inside for what she knew was lying somewhere deep in her, the core of her power, the small spark of light that she housed in her soul. _(There! I just need to...let it loose...I need to..._) She was fainting, the pressure on her neck bruising and constricting. Desperately, she clung to the spark like a life saver -which in retrospective, it **was**. Her hand glowed pink and she heard through the daze of her head the sudden indrawn breath of the demon. "'Tis true. I don't--know you," she panted barely above a whisper. "But if you don't let go... I s--swear I'll purify your unknown ass...i--into oblivion."

She pushed her powers a little to mark her words, his wrist burning as if touched by fresh light. With a grunt he released her and she fell in a graceless, heavily panting heap at his feet.

Sango and Kohaku appeared at her side, the figures silent and still, yet she knew they were somehow assessing the situation to help her out if the demon tried anything again, or to make a hasty retreat with her if that anything involved another battle.

Nevertheless, Sesshoumaru's mind was lurking on quite a different path. He studied the three worn out figures at his feet with keen, gold eyes.

There was a pause, the silence only interrupted by Kagome's harsh breathing and the sound of the now tranquil waves eating at the shore.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, as if he'd reached some inner conclusion. With a swift move, he tossed the severed eye at the wide-eyed huntress, his own golden ones never leaving Kagome's. Then he turned and regarded the dragon, his burnt hand falling to his side, the sleeve of his kimono sliding down to cover it from view.

Sango saw Kagome make an attempt at standing up, possibly to try to stop the other from comitting cold murder, but she couldn't move, couldn't react beyond gagging repeatedly in horror. She shivered in disgust. Having that **thing** on her hands, dripping blood and staring at her blindly -its turquoise iris up, fixed on her face- prevented her from acting.

Meanwhile, Sesshoumaru strolled towards the unconscious form of the serpent. His steps were measured, his pose almost blank. His part of the contract was submitted, now it was time to end this.

Behind him, Kagome hastened to shout. "Stop! Please! I- I'm sorry I said those things about you, but I just wanted to help!" She saw he wasn't bulging, wasn't even slowing down to aknowledge her words. She bit her lip, agitated. "I-I'm sorry I threatened to shoot you...Really, I wasn't going to! But please," she stood up, fell and scrambled on all fours towards him. "Please, don't do this!"

She saw him move near the God and shut her eyes, berating herself for being so useless when she was most needed.

Some noiseless seconds went by. After what she considered was an appropriate amount of time for a heartless blood shed-which she had always assumed would be rather noisy, actually...well, there went to the trash another of her assumptions-, she took a careful peek through scrounched eyes.

To her sudden wide-eyed bafflement, Sesshoumaru hadn't stopped at the dragon's out-cold form but had continued past it, towards the edge of the sea. Soft white-crested waves lapped at his booted feet as he continued walking in the water, then jumping up until he stood perched at the top of a minor boulder.

He was facing the oceanic horizon, eyes scrutinizing the calm surface wearily. The sea's master was wounded, yet none of his minions had made themselves present. Mmm...too casual and odd for his liking. He'd have to call for them then. What's the best way to bait serpent slaves to come out of the craddle?

As if on cue, there came a sudden sound like the rolling of thunder. But this one wasn't coming from above, but from beneath. It shook the ocean into stillness, made rolls of sandtopple down, stone boulders standing in the deep sea crumbling in heavy splashes.

In the distance, the far-off roaring grew, intensifying, and a wavering line of white was seen raising over the blue line of the ocean.

All four of them stared at the growing mass of water that approached the shore...a tidal wave racing.

Kagome gulped. Sango alternated between morbid fascination for the gooy eye and distressed fascination for the oncoming mass of water that would surely swallow them in a matter on minutes. Kohaku trembled, grabbing fistfuls of his sister's sash.

Sesshoumaru blinked.

The wave rose above them now, a wall of deep blue water that shadowed the whole bay. Figures could be seen riding it, fish-men in scaly armours.

_(So the mongrels have come after all. Well, this will be easier then.)_ Without raising his voice below normal level, but somehow managing to be heard above the roar of the ocean, he addressed the army of the sea.

"Don't come nearer," he said, and to the other's awe, the wave stopped and crumbled. "Your master has been overpowered, but I won't take its life. Take him away if you must but don't attempt anything or I shall wipe you all off your nest."

One fish-man approached him, riding a shark like fish made of silver and green. He stood in front of Sesshoumaru, eyes glinting maliciously under a mat of weed like hair. "Who are you to command us, dog?" He looked beyond him to the fallen figure of his lord. "What have you done to our master?"

Sesshoumaru shrugged, eyes blank. "Your master decided to affront me. I merely took from him a repayment for his daring," he paused, arms crossing over his chest. "As for who I am, it is of no concern of yours...or your kin."

"You put on too much airs, dog. What you've done cannot go without punishment."

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow, the coldness of his youki notching up some degrees. "Will you try fighting me too, then?" He gestured lightly with his head to the dragon. "I defeated him unarmed, you'll be nothing more than fish food by the time I am done with you."

The fish-man growled but did not move. The others behind him writhed in their fish-mounts, some even submerged and dissappeared. There was fear in the air, suspicion. The demon was powerful, they could feel his aura swelling, smooth, cold and menacing. Trecherous. It leaked through their armours and skins...it froze them to their bones. He'd tumbled their master without much effort, that much was obvious; he didn´t even sport a scratch or injury to testify that the God of the Realm of the Sea had even put up a good strong fight. What, then, could they do against him?

After a moment, the fish-man bowed stiffly and motioned some of his companions to alight on shore. Half the army moved forward and quickly did up with the unconscious body of the dragon, dragging it to the depths.

"We will take him to heal. But mark this, our master does not easily forgive or forget, he will want his revenge. He'll come out to hunt you again."

At this Sesshoumaru smiled slightly. "Let him try." And without ado turned and stood on the sand again, measured steps moving him towards the humans.

The army drew down in the coming waves, silver and green scales shimmering for a moment and then vanishing into the sea.

The air calmed, hushed by the gentle hum of the pacified waves, once again scenting of salt and summer heat.

Kagome frowned at this. (_What was that?)_ One minute they are all for the big plunge of their lives and the next...well, **this**! Very puzzling.

"How did you do that?" she asked unnecassarily.

He didn't answer her. Instead Sesshoumaru, standing by them, eyes downcast, focused on the upper sleeve of his ripped clothing. Blood oozed a little when he prodded the wound on his shoulder with slim fingers. He pushed a bit more deeply, more blood pouring out but it was clean of poison or salt, which meant it would soon heal nicely without leaving a scar.

"Ehmm...I asked you how did you do that?" Kagome repeated, furrowing her brow and approaching him with a slight limp. "What did you say to them to make them go away?"

Sesshoumaru still didn't aknowledge her. He let a little of his own poison to seep through his fingernails and wet the edges of the wound. His flesh sizzled, burning a soft yellow that congealed immediately, the bleeding stopping altogether.

"He-llo? Anyone up there?" Kagome waved a hand in front of his eyes.

Still, he didn't even look at her. Now that he thought on it, it had been a while since he'd received a battle wound; but, then again, it had been a while since he'd been doing anything, apparently. _(So it is true...I've been asleep through the ages after all.)_ The idea didn't shock him so much. _(I wonder how much time has passed?) _A lot considering humans had wiped out the things he'd known for so long, not leaving a mere trace of them.

Kagome raised an eyebrow in annoyance. What was the matter with this guy? She turned around, seeking help from Sango only to see her still prodding the big, sightless eye of the now begone dragon. She was trying to put it in the cloth bag that hung from her sash, but it was futile...it being to big and slippery to control with only one hand. No help there, then.

It was quite fascinating, Sesshoumaru pondered, how during the countless and countless years he'd been roaming Yashima, nothing as significantly big or earth-changing as this sudden out sprout of human architectural creativity had occurred. Yet he is captured and sealed in a shabby little temple and the world decides to go up and have a complete make-over...

He blinked away his musing rapidly. Something distracting was happening to his left arm. His eyes lowered to said section encountering a mass of black hair -dissarrayed, dirty, twigs and leaves poking from between its strands- and under it, the body of the girl...poking him. It was repetitive, insistent, brisk. The kind of poke kids receive from their parents when they are being excessively hard-headed about playing some game or other and the adults want them to stop and focus.

The girl was poking him.

**He **was being poked at.

Kagome stopped when she felt eyes boring holes on her scalp. "Ehmm...sorry. But you weren't snapping out of it and I thought you might be in shock or something..."

He still stared at her, probably digesting the being poked at bit.

Kagome gulped, retreating a couple of steps from him. Suddenly, she was feeling very bad vibe from him.

Perhaps poking him hadn't been such a great idea after all._ (Look at what he did to me just for trying to help him...)_ She winced, remembering her fall.

"Forget it." She bit her lip, suddenly insecure what to do now. He'd given them the eye and in exchange she would have to help him review a little world history. For what she'd understood from their previous conversation with the God, this guy had been sealed away or something yet he had somehow awoken. _(He doesn't seem like a very modern type of demon. His clothes are old...Looking at him closely, he looks more like a prince of the Warring times right out of a fairytales book than a blood thirsty demon. Goodness, and look at that hair! It must be a real pain washing it.)_ As her eyes strayed to the tips of said hair a thought crashed her mind.

_(I've seen that hair before...) _Her eyes fixed on his face and she gasped. A flash of recognition went through her mind. She remembered visiting an old shrine in Tokyo when she was little, seeing a trapped demon behind 1000 charms...

"You!" she pointed her finger at him. "You're that stuffed puppet!" Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth.

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. Had he just been called a puppet?

She stuttered. "Ah...I mean...that is..." she blushed prufesely. _(Damn my mouth and its own private brain! Gah!)_

Good thing that at that precise moment, Sango hobbled towards them, her weight heavily falling on a pale and heaving Kohaku, the eye held on his right hand. "Higurashi, we must leave. Yiu-san must be waiting for us."

Kagome shook her head, dispeling embarrassing thoughts of her younger self bawling to have 'pretty hair like that', and turned towards her. "Ah, hai."

"You will give me the answers promised, miko," Sesshoumaru said, breaking his silence. Kagome jumped slightly, startled.

"Y-yes, I know. But I can't do it just now!" She looked around, desperate for an explanation. "We are in a bit of a hurry right now and...well, we are practically in the middle of nowhere! I-I'm going to need my books and I'll have to make a little previous research, you know... I don't even know who you are. I'll need some time..." she drifted. He wasn't looking at her directly but rather staring at some distant point over the top of her head. His face was blank, calculating.

Sango elbowed her and motioned with her head to the street where the van laid. She was quite flushed on the cheeks but the rest of her face was pale as a sheet. Her wound was truly stabbing her now. "We have to go!" she mouthed silently.

Kagome sweatdropped. "Uhmm... please, just give me a day and I'll help you however I can. But I **will **need a day...please." She tried telling him with as much of a hopeful tone as she could muster.

Sesshoumaru didn't answer -something that Kagome was increasingly becoming accostumed to by now, but which didn't exactly mean she was cordially accepting. She huffed, barely concealing her annoyance. But before she could start poking him again -it **had **worked the first time, after all-, he nodded to the horizon and said "Very well."

As he wasn't extending any further explanation to that sudden epiphany, Kagome frowned and asked. "Is there any way I can contact you? I don't suppose you'll have like...a phone number or an address, right?"

Sesshoumaru remained silently puzzled for the span of a minute, wondering what an address might be. He surmised, rather correctly, it might imply a place to locate him. At this idea, he huffed. "Don't be ridiculous, miko, you would never find me."

Kagome gaped. (_Goodness, can you be more full of yourself or what? This guy is so going to burst with it!_) but her inner rambles were cut short when he added mysteriously...

"I will find you."

She was momentarily speechless. When she regained her words, they burst out in disbelief. "Oh, yeah? And how will you do that? I haven't even given you my name."

"It's Higurashi," he stated blandly.

Kagome sputtered. "How did you-!" then she smacked her forehead. Sango had been yelling it ever since they had set foot on the beach, of course he would have heard it eventually.

"Right, yes. But that doesn't mean you know where I live or anything!"

"That is irrelevant."

How he'd managed what he did next, Kagome was sure she would never be able to vouch for. But one minute he was standing still some safe feet away, staring at her and the next she was being yanked forward to smash against smooth old silk and a lean body, a clawed hand gracing her good frozen arm, the twisted one hanging limp and forgotten...

...and the face of a demon lightly pressed to the side of her neck.

_(What the-!)_ Kagome breathed in noisily, utterly stunned.

His nose faintly traced a spot in her skin, right behind the ear. He inhaled and when he exhaled, his breath brushed against the fine hairs on her neck and her suddenly gone too-cold skin.

Kagome gasped, body and mind now temporarily out of service. **_(What the-- Hell!)_**

In a spur, she jumped and pushed back instinctively, alarmed by his abrupt way-too-close-for-her-comfort current position. But he didn't flinch nor move a milimeter away, merely dipped his head a little lower, bodies pressing just a tad bit more together, his face slowly gliding up.

Kagome shivered, unnerved and downright scared. This was so...so...**wrong**! Not only because he was an utter stranger, and a big bad demon at that and that she had never been in this oh-too-close quarters with anyone before but because...well, because no honest, down-to-earth girl like her would allow something like this to continue!

She opened her mouth, intent on giving him a piece of her mind when felt his cheek and his nose graze the skin on her upper neck. Then a breath on her ear, the carress of words whispered "I know your scent now."

And with that she was released.

It couldn't have lasted more that a minute but Kagome was sure that at that precise moment, he had killed some ten years of her life-span.

She staggered back, dazed, blinking eyes and forrowed eyebrows, trembling hands moving to feel around the place in her neck were he'd...could that be called an unconsensual nuzzle? It had most certainly felt like that to her!

He was walking off the beach slowly, without any care or regard for what he had just done. His back straight flashed white from in and out of view, intermitently being covered by his long, swishing hair. Without stopping or turning he said "You have one day. Tomorrow at this time, I will come for you." And then he vanished.

Kagome knees gave out and she collapsed over her arse.

A soft breeze blew sticky black strands of her hair over her eyes which were still glued to the spot where he'd vanished. Sango came and stood in front of her, bending painfully and waving a hand in front of her eyes. "Hey, are you ok?"

_(That was-and he was-he just--) _Kagome choked.

"Fuck."

----------------------

Glossary of Japanese words:

Ryou no me: Dragon's eye.

Shoten-sama: milord priest.

Chigo-sama: milord assistant of the High Priestess.

Ryou no kami: Dragon God.

Ryou-ue: Higher Dragon.

Youki: demon power.

Tantou: short silver knife.

Kemari: a ball sport of old time, quite similar to soccer. It is the sport Inuyasha always remembers in the anime as being where, for the first time, he saw his mother cry.

Yashima: ancient name for Japan.

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C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a.


	8. Chapter 8

The "excuses" corner: Indeed, welcome to you all to that part of the fanfic where the authoress falls at your feet to beg mercy for having blithely disappeared for six months and then has the gall to return with a chappie under her arm, hands in pockets and whistling innocently as if she had never vanished from the face of the net. Because, technically, that's what I did, right?

Anyway, I'm only going to add in my defense that: A- it wasn't intentional. B- I got a new job at the beginning of this year, so now I'm translating (professionally speaking), teaching classes, attending _my_ own college classes _and_ studying Japanese –I sincerely don't know how I even manage to go to the bathroom. Truly, I don't even have time to read fanfic, much less write it myself. C- I have neither internet connection nor computer at home anymore so I have to beg to my friends every time I even want to check my mails or type an essay (yes, being a college student in Argentina sucks. No amount of money is ever enough.) Finally, D- I think I re-wrote this _at least_ twenty times (not exaggerating here) and am still not happy with it. But I figured I might as well go ahead and publish it already as am not feeling like doing it all over again because I want to reach the one that comes _after_ this –I have such great plans for that one...wheee!- I already started it in my notebook.

So, if anyone still cares to cybernetically wallop me, then go ahead, it's your right to do so, you all have my e-mail address...

...and while you're at it, please don't forget to tell me what you thought of this chappie, 'k? ) (wink wink) I know, I know, I'm a sucker for this shite...

Without further rambles, The Fic...

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha.

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:Last Dream:

-an Inuyasha fanfiction-

by C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a

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"…." talking

(….) thinking

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:Chapter 8::Senkensha:

-Tokyo City... 2pm-

As she breathed in and out evenly, Kagome came to a riveting conclusion.

_(What. A. Bastard._

_What a condescending, utter prick! The gall of the man...ehmm...**demon **to come and sniff me so--so--)_

"Argh!"

Now that she was safely locked in the van, miles away from the beach, Kagome unleashed the full scale of her anger. _(Oh, and his so Cooler Than Thou attitude, his I Come And Go as I Please, his Look At My Hair Blowing In The Distance. Who the Hell does he think he is! I should have thrown a shoe at him or--or maybe a rock. Yes, a nice, hard, basketball sized rock.)_

"Neh. Who am I kidding? He was too far away by the time I bloody reacted," she muttered darkly, leaning back against the seat of the van, trying to wriggle her dead-feeling arm out of the recesses of her T-shirt. She sighed. No point in mulling over it now. It was water passed and under the bridge. Oh, how she'd wished she could have drowned that pretty little head of his on the sea, too.

How could he have acted so familiar towards her? It was embarrassing and...and rude!

_(And this stupid, stupid shirt won't come off!)_ She gave a yank at it, and winced when the hem caught on her injured shoulder. Sango had suggested it might be a lot easier-and frankly, a lot less painful-just to cut through the damn fabric and be done with it. But Kagome would hear none of it. The shirt had been a present from her brother and, though already dirty, mildly scratched and awfully disposable-looking, she wanted to preserve it as complete as could be said possible.

Slowly, really slowly, she was pushing her arm out of the sleeve with the trembling fingers of her left arm, her back protesting the unnecessary dead weight. She gave a good, sonorous exhale at the view that greeted her. Her arm wasn't broken after all _(Thank the mighty Gods for that!)_, just terribly bruised and obviously out of service for the time being. She lowered it to lie vertically at her side, her other less destroyed arm already busy inspecting the rest of her. She was quite bruised, and some of the slightly bleeding slashes on her legs would surely leave scars, but all in all she'd made it quite safe and soundly.

Which couldn't be applied so easily to the huntress.

She grimaced again at the memory. She'd helped Kohaku -well, as far as she could with only one arm anyway- to remove Sango's upper clothing. At the time, her inane brain had doodled usesslessly in the softness and stretch of the huntress' black clothing material, the way it hugged the body without constricting its movements in the least, like a soft yet resistant second skin. All to keep her mind away from what laid beneath. As the layers were parted and she had an open view of the young woman's back, she had blanched. The lacerations ran with three major, ragged gashes from shoulder to almost mid back; the rest a collection of minor scratches that were, nevertheless, trickling out a rather constant amount of blood. The entirety of them were dirty blotches of dried black-red and sand mixing, further irritating the paper-white skin, turning it yellowish and grey at the edges. The cloth that Kohaku had fake-tied around the wounds had stuck to them like glue, a cotton-sponge fat and crimson with blood and dust. Removing that had, ironically enough, been more painful for them than for the huntress. It was simply outstanding the way Sango held on all composed through out their shaky, almost skittish ministrations. She didn't moan nor writhe at all. Just sat there, back to the two of them, once in a while hissing silently, but only barking at them to bloody hurry up because they needed to take the eye entourage to the temple as soon as possible.

Never a "Watch out!" or a "Why don't you just kill me right now and be done with it!" as Kagome was sure she would have whimpered had it been she in her place.

Now, with a rather stiff-backed Kohaku sitting behind the wheel, driving them as fast and as inconspicuously as possible through the Bay's back streets towards the Zojoji no Jinja, a cleanly wrapped up and anointed Sango sitting next to him -once in a while giving him some mumbled, much needed driving directions-, Kagome could finally lean back, close her eyes and let tension ease out like melting butter.

Her head lolled unchecked to lay heavily against the sun warm glass of the window. She was tuning out the sounds of the traffic and the hammering ache in her arm, mind drifting to the beach, the dragon, the demon, the fight and her near-death experience. She knew that tonight, once this day waned and ended at last and she was safely tucked at home, eating her favourite dish and watching her favourite TV programme, she'd probably crack up mightily, hyperventilate...and most surely pass out. But as of now, in the still early afternoon of this Friday, trapped in a van skittishly driven by an underaged boy and co-piloted by his bleeding, half-dead half-awake sister, she could calmly navigate the dazed depths of her thoughts unhindered by a possible inner functionary black-out.

The best course of action she could take now was try to be positive about it all. So, she was reveling in the fact that they were all still alive -though not currently fit to begin running a marathon of course-, that she had somehow managed to keep the cool of her powers long enough as to maintain the kekkai up and running during the battle, securing the ignorance of outsiders and the intactness of the beach temple compound once the squabble was over. It was a real thrill knowing she had been able to erect such a shield succesfully and she made a mental note to goad the fact in Miroku's face once she'd reached home.

Her eyes strayed to the wooden box that sat bumping once in a while with their transport's sudden turns. The bag with the eye was safely locked inside it, next to four strange pearls Sango had placed in it to secure the eye's Seeing properties and keeping it from grossly decomposing. Right next to it, blocking the entire left window and door, was her humungous yellow pack, loaded to the brim with towels, protective ofudas and other assorted talismans her jii-chan had seen fit to load her with in her dire adventure, and of course, the many bentos and snacks her mother had prepared in hopes that she might have a pleasent, normal teenage picnic on the beach... Because it was so normal for teenagers to go dragon hunting to desolate, miles-away-from-home beaches in the first place.

She sighed. She should at least be grateful her mother was always trying to make her feel normal after all, but sometimes that became much harder to bear than to feel completely excluded and a possible lost case anyway. Shrugging, she bent towards her pack and rummaged about, taking out two plastic boxes filled in their compartments with salted chicken, lotus roots sliced in neat petal impersonations, and many ohagi rice balls. She unwrapped the transparent plastic that covered them and mutely handed one to her companions. Sango seemed about to refuse, but Kagome smiled and politely insisted. "Plus, you both need the energy anyway. 'kaa-san always told me that squished rice and sweet bean's paste is full of vitamins."

Sango seemed mildly stranged at this sudden interest in her vitamin-ingesting diet, but she decided to accept the treat anyway. She gave Kagome a nod and a somewhat hushed "arigatou", taking the food box and turning once again to indicate her brother to take a right turn five blocks from the main road.

Kagome was beginning to drift into inner addleness again, once in a while popping a root or ohagi in her mouth in silent contemplation.

She was quite happy for possessing the dragon eye, too. Now they had the tools to enter the daisaiin's dreams and, with a bit of luck on their side, solve the whole mystery too.

Yep, she was happy for their success. But that regrettably lead her to darker thoughts. Namely, her promise to that prick of a white demon. Now here was something she couldn't find positiveness in. Yes, she conceded he had saved her life twice, and probably even a third time by being him the one to actually retreive the eye; but that 'help me with my kodai buumu' negotiation just sounded quite a bit fishy. Although, she had already come to submissively accept it had been her own folly that had landed her on such a predicament, in the first place.

Why, oh why did her mouth always speak before consulting with her brains? It was like having your own personal enemy attached to your face.

_(So if I am to guess, he comes from way in the past -not much enlightening taking in consideration most of the youkais nowadays were born some hundred of years back-, and I am to somehow find his origins, life and times and shed knowledge into what happened to the world right after he...ehmm...was imprisoned? Was stuck unconscious somewhere? Got amnestic?...Whatever happened to him anyway? I mean, to loose your time bearings and just waltz around needing life-continuance directions must enthuse the fact that somehow you missed the days' passing, right? _

_How do you do that?)_ Kagome pondered, marvelling at the pique of envy she felt at him having no idea what was the world now up to. That sounded like a real mental holiday to her.

Then again, it would prove to be a real ass-sore to sort through the past trying to find the moment he dissapperead. Youkais, as far as she knew, were always seen as legend. Yes, they existed, she could sourly vouch for that, but what with the humans increasing and expanding numbers, they had been pushed to the side lines, something that surprisingly enough the demons themselves seemed to have taken to accept quite complacently. Long gone were the days when fierce mortal warriors or strongwilled priests searched their hideouts and their powerful blood. Nobody truly believed or cared for them any longer. And they, in return, didn't care much to continue roaming the world, choosing instead to slip into obscurity. Unknown to the world.

Sadly, that could also be applied to records of them from the past.

No one had seen fit to write or state much about those mythical creatures, not even when they were the supposed rulers of the land. Her grandfather said that demons of those age were so powerful that the mere trace of their names on scroll would summon the doom of an entire village. A risk no scribe would be willing to take.

Kagome surmised it wasn't necesarily so fantastical an occurrence. It must have been only a matter of general illiteracy. Japan's past was full of great writing courtesans, yes, but those knowledged on the arts were far above simple superstitions. Their legacy was a bunch of laws and imperial dictates, the scandals typical of a flourishing empire, records on wars and squabbles, utopian views on how a country should be ruled and the like. Few dwelled objectively on the aspect of peasent beleif.

And that is exactly how demons and ghouls were -and still are, for some-seen. Mere popular fiction.

That left the villagers themselves. But the populace didn't write things down much at the time, no means to do that, of course. It was understood that anything of major significance would simply: A- already be known; or B- orally spread. All records on demons are, then, folk tales born from songs and whispers.

Simple rumours.

Which just left Kagome on a bit of a predicament as to her course of action. _(But there has to be something about him on grandpa's books... I could even try Tokyo's Central Library or the Emperor's Temple now that I'm at it! I've heard they have quite a collection on folktales and myths.)_ She made a quick nod, a plan to rang up the library as soon as she touched home ground rapidly forming on her brain. _(Yes, I'm sure they'll help me up with this. I can say it's for a major school project or something...ehmm...that I'm doing a History vs. Legend essay. That sounds neat.)_

She chewed the last lotus root and swallowed, now that she had some idea as to how to proceed feeling a world better.

But as the saying goes, all happiness is but momentary.

"So Higurashi," Sango intoned, turning slightly in her seat to address her, "who was that ghost looking demon?"

"What?"

"His name. What's he called? From what I've seen back there you seemed to be on rather friendly terms..." Sango drifted off when she saw the other's rapidly paling face.

Kagome had paused eating. The last lotus root was lurching in her stomach as she opened her mouth to answer but then shut it.

He...

He was...

Her stomach knoted.

She had no idea!

"Oh kami, I forgot to ask his name!" she cried, turning a nasty shade of white, hands flying to her cold cheeks. "How could I have been so stupid! I should have asked him before we left!...oh Gods, and he even knew my name, too. **My** name when it's me the one who's supposed to find things about **him**! How am I supposed to do that now! And he's coming tomorrow at midday...I don't have time!

...what am I going to do?" she finished with a lame groan. She felt like thumping her head against the glass pane.

Sango raised both eyebrows, surprised at the helpless outburst. "Ehmm...calm down Higurashi. There's no need to panic--"

"Yes, there is...Damn, and it's all my fault, too."

"But Higurashi..."

"Kagome. Just call me Kagome, please," and the lame tone was still there.

Sango blinked. "O-kay. Kagome-san, I'm sure there's a way out." Sango turned her head around and indicated Kohaku to take the 33 until the exit towards Kinishi Road. Then straight ahead to skirt around Tokyo's noon traffic.

"But I know nothing of him! I just--I just saw him a couple of times and only today he was speaking. I'm supposed to help him with his life story, that was my part of the bargain."

"Life story?" What the Hell--?

"Yeah. I think he was trapped away or something."

"Then why don't you check the old demon scripts? The Zojoji Temple has quite a collection. I'm sure Yiu-san will have no problems with you reading them."

"But I don't even know which type of demon he is! He didn't say. He just ordered me to search information and left!"

Sango put a rice-ball on her mouth, chewed and swallowed. "A lord, most probably."

Kagome, taken aback in mid-rant, cocked her head. "How do you know?"

Sango shrugged with one shoulder. "The mark on his forehead, a crescent moon. Only lords and generals wear marks. Also the fabric of his yellow sash and his kimono's hand painted pattern. I'm guessing he must have been rather important on his time to have such hard to find garments. Maybe even a Great Lord."

Something akin to hope bloomed in the depths of Kagome's stomach. "Do--do you really think so?"

"Sure. If I recall correctly, facial marks showed the high lineage and heritage of demons." Sango gave her a lopsided smile. "But anyway, you can always research for the western kingdom. The Dragon God did called him Nishi-kei, after all. Dind't you hear it?"

Of course! Who wouldn't have heard it? Half of Japan must have for the God beast had shouted it to the four winds...

And just like that Kagome thought she might faint with releif. Of course! Ryou-ue had spent half the fight spitting out those words as if they were blasphemous. "You're right! He mentioned the West and...and something of dogs I think. Mmm...he didn't look much like a dog to me. Although that fluffy thing round his shoulder could be a tail _(or a really plush scarf...)_" Kagome waved a hand in front of her to dispel the image. "Nah. We are in the middle of summer. Plus, it didn't look like the customery traditional fashion asset of old, right?"

Sango shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe."

"We're here, ane-ue." Kohaku announced, spinning the wheel and screeching the van to a halt at the shrine steps. "Wait, I'll help you down," he said quickly getting down and going round the front to his sister's door.

Kagome sighed and began opening her own door. "Arigatou, Sango-san..."

"Huh?" The huntress turned and looked at her, puzzled. "What for?"

"Well, all this," Kagome said vaguely, smiling nervously, gesturing with her hands between them. "I thought I was going to have to break my promise to him, but now you've given me hope...and some idea where to start looking. Arigatou."

Sango looked at her for a minute, expression softening slightly. Then she shook her head and shrugged non-commitaly. "Well, I must say I've never seen anything like a miko and a demon having any sort of positive interaction before, but... I trust you'll have your well thought out reasons to do it. Hopefully, nothing will go astray."

Kagome laughed awkwardly, eyes averted to her pack as she closed it, to avoid the huntress reading the awful truth on them. The only reason she had agreed to this was because the guy had dangled her several unsafe feet from the ground, threatening to let go if she refused.

That, and because he gave her the creeps.

Kohaku opened his sister's door, saying, "Wouldn't it be better if you just waited here? Higurashi-san and I...we could take the eye for you," he embraced Sango's shoulders and pushed her out slowly, trying to avoid sliding her back against the seat. "Or I could call Yiu-san and tell him to come here instead...I'm sure he wouldn't mind, ane-ue."

"Oh, stop clucking to me like a mother hen. I'm perfectly alright," she abdominished, waving his hands away. She turned to Kagome as she was hobbling slowly up the steps, left side heavily pressing against her still sputtering brother for support. "Kagome-san, please don't forget the box. And don't let it fall down," she finished, almost reaching the step's first landing.

"Hai, hai," the girl yelled back, squirming her way out of the door, bottom first, pulling the box and her pack with only one hand. For a couple of beat up taijiyas they sure as Hell were climbing fast.

Once out, she let the humoungous yellow monstruosity down with and audible "Oof!" and tied her bow and stash of arrows to it; then she began dragging it all up. She ached and sighed and grumbled, hating the excesive excersice she was being forced to endure when she already felt so sore and ready to lie down on her bed to sleep this Friday off for at least a month.

"Higurashi-san! Hurry up."

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" she waved at them, jogging the last steps up until reaching the torii. She could already picture herself acing her next semester's gym class like the best.

Once at the temple's entrance, she was aided by two servants whom took her load away and led her through to the back, beyond the sakura trees garden. Amazingly, everywhere she passed was people-free. Probably they had decided to shut the temple to sempai-sha for the time being. Quite a logical thing to do seeing as how none still could answer for the daisaiin's state.

Maybe some visitor had poisoned her?

She shook her head and looked around at the constructions. The cobbled garden which they were crossing was splashed with the pink colour of the falling petals. The two pagodas at the sides of the main temple seemed like drawings out of an old papyrus painted live against the clear blue sky with their crimson tiles, the detailed impressions of swirling dragons crafted on the wood walls and the golden gleam of its hanging lamps.

She passed the two white marbled statues of the koma-inu, the temple's guardian dog spirits, feeling their bejeweled eyes at the back of her head following her steps, making her aware of their innanimate stare.

She looked around and behind. The huntress and her little brother were nowhere to be seen.

"This way, miko-sama. They're awaiting you at Amaterasu-oh-mikami's lower shrine," one of the assistants said dryly, eyeing her disheveled and sweaty appereance distatefully.

_(Well, if you had to fight a dragon and be tossed about a whole beach like a rag doll, I'd like to see how you'd fare after that! It's not like the dragon's eye was in a bloody spa or anything!)_

"Yes, thank you," she muttered courteously enough despite her crude thoughts, passing a hand through her hair to try combing it somewhat. The servant just coffed and turned away, moving left beyond the cleaning fountain and leading her to the goddess' praying shrine.

She wanted to ask if Sango was already there or if she had gone directly to the daisaiin's quarters, but all words fled her mouth in a whoosh when she stepped inside the well-lit haiden to see who exactly "they" were.

Half of Japan's imperial Court sat round a long chabudai sipping green tea and hushing dark comments through scowling faces. Kagome recognized the Prime Minister Tatakai Yiu at the head of the table, the Chief Councilor Satou Tsukimura, Councilor Takuya Abe and the Head of the District's police force Yoshitoshi Kochii, amongst many others. Even the Court's Head Director and the Emperor's right hand, Mashimo Motosuke, was there!

As the shoji doors parted completely and she stood there gaping like a fish on its last living minutes, ten pairs of eyes turned towards her.

_(Holy naked Buddha.)_ She thought dismally.

The Court members were staring.

Some raised their eyebrows.

Others scowled at her.

Kagome gulped, blushed, bowed, and swore mentally to quit her job as the Higurashi shrine's saiin as soon as she reached home. _(What are the Court members doing here! I thought this was supposed to be a secret to the world or something... But, then again, who else can decree a national hush-hush of the subject but the Court itself. _

_Damn, I should've known.)_ She bit her lip, feeling very uncomfortable. _(And where's Sango when I need her!)_

A man on the left side of the long table stood up, his dark clothing and tall black headdress marking him as a high ranking priest. "Higurashi-san, at last we meet," he said in complacent tones, a picture perfect smile plastered on his smooth face.

He bowed slightly. "I'm the Prime Delegate and President of the Jinja no Zojoji's shoten division--"

"Shikimura-sama," Kagome said immediately, recognizing the blank features and quiet prowess of the daisaiin's right hand and Chamberlain of Japan's Shrines Parishioner's Group. The man suspected of having knocked the sacred child out.

Ryoei smiled quaintly. "Ah, I see you recognize me. A pleasure to make your acquaintence. Why don't you sit down?" He motioned to an ampty space in front of him. "We were just discussing a subject that very much concerns you."

Kagome bowed again more pronouncedly and moved towards her seat. Something in Shikimura's voice made her shudder in distaste. It was a strange tone, oozing a warmth that just crawled under you skin with its hard, fake familiarity.

She was feeling every man's eyes in the room following her with undisguised scrutiny so she tried with every ounce of pride she had not to limp too noticiably. She raised her head and squared her shoulders, refusing to let their stares belittle her. Now she understood why the assistants had been eyeing her as if she'd just dropped out of a wild trash-can safari. She dropped easily to her knees over the velvet plushness of the blue sitting pillow. A servant immediately came forward, knelt next to her and served her tea with practiced, deft movements. Then, mutely retired to a corner.

"I am sure, Higurashi-san, that you already know most of us gathered here, if your recent expression was of any indication," Ryoei was saying conversationally, the other elders on the table smiling benignely at her sudden blush of embarrasment. Oh, so they had seen her fish impression, then. Goodness, she shuddered at what her mother would say were she to tell her of her pathetic reaction in front of the country's top political forces. She'd surely die of embarrasment for having spawned such a rude progeny.

"I'll skip the formal introductions, then, in favor of more...pressing matters."

Kagome acquised with a muted nod. She didn't much trust her voice -or sanity-just yet. No teenage girl should ever be put under the stress of being in the same room with ten Court members. It made having a tea party with a lunatic sound so much more safe... _(Ok, girl, just calm down and get a grip on yourself. If you pass this, no other oral exam in front of the class will ever be an embarrasing affair. Ever again.)_

"Good." The man shuffled through some papers in front of him, skipping their contents through bored eyes and handing some to the Court's Director, Mashimo Motosuke, who sat at the table's head. Kagome thought it strange that it wasn't the Director the one leading the meeting, but a simple high priest. She shrugged mentally. _(Whatever. I'm sure they know what they're doing.)_

"We have just been told by the Prime Minister that you and one of the descendants of the hunter family have returned with the means to extricate our Lady from her stupor." The man made a pause, raising a rather sceptical eyebrow. "And that those means are...a dragon's Seeing property? Is this correct, Higurashi-san?"

Kagome sweatdropped at the incredulous tone of the other. "Eh, yes. Sango-san, she is a professional demon hunter and, well, she said that if we used the powder of a dragon's scale to create a...potion, I think, well then, that we could use it to enter the daisaiin's dreams and perhaps find out what exactly happened to her. Maybe even bring her back completely."

"Dragon's scale? Do those things even exist?" A man to her right asked with a scoff. Kagome turned to him, intending in telling him exactly how much real those darn things were, but Tatakai won her round. His voice echoed from the other end of the table with unquestionable surety.

"Oh, yes, Ueda-san. I found it hard to believe, too, when I first heard of it. But I have just seen it myself and let me tell you," the Minister continued gravely, one hand over his knee, the other tapping the papers in front of him for emphasis, eyes aglow. "Not only dragons are very much real and mighty but this young lady here and the brave huntress with her brought the entire eye to help us! They fought a great God and defeated him unaided!" he finished proudly with a beaming smile directed to our now flinching, recently-baptized super heroine.

Many gasps and unbelievable whispers followed this statement which, of course, didn't help her blush recede at all.

Tsukimura spoke up from three seats to her right. "A truly remarkable deed, Higurashi-san. However did you come about defeating a kami? Isn't it dangerous to go against the deities one worships?"

_(He **had** to ask that of all things, didn't he? Could he really not wait to prod my believes that much?)_ "Well, yes, but...it's a bit complicated. We had some...extra-official help." Lame, Kagome thought, but it'd distract them from the moral side of the matter.

Ueda raised an eyebrow, graceful hand delicately raising the porcelain cup to sip some tea. The obvious question of "who?" dancing in his eyes.

Then, the Court Director Mashimo Motosuke spoke up, "Surely, Ueda, you aren't questioning the miko's faith, are you? It is of little relevance what transpired in the fight right now; though of course," his brown eyes behind round spectacles turned towards her. He was an aged man, probably on his late fifties, short and slightly plump. He had thick black eyebrows and hair, and was dressed in an impecable blue suit, which only emphazised his high status and wisdom. He was smiling at Kagome kindly, the first real smile she had received since entering this snake's pit. "I'm sure it is quite an anecdote. Perhaps some day, Higurashi-san, you'll do as the honor to come to the palace and retell it. The Heavenly Lord and Lady have great greed for such tales."

Kagome stared at him wide-eyed for a minute, her heart skipping a beat._ (Have I just been invited to see the emperors! Oh my God, this is so cool! Eri-chan and Yuka-chan are so not going to believe me!)_. She cleared her throat as the inner squeal faded from her mind and said, "Hai, Mashimo-sama. It'll be an honor to oblige you." She bowed her head.

The man smiled more appreciatively.

Good thing her nerves didn't block out her formal manners.

"Excellent. Now, Higurashi-san, why don't you tell us exactly how you plan to use this dragon eye." Ryoei continued, plastic smile fixed on his face. "Wouldn't it be better if one of our trained priests did it for you?"

"Well, yes, I suppose it would. Actually, I'm not sure how the spell is done or what part it is I'm supposed to play. As I said before, it was Sango-san's idea, not mine."

"But, hasn't she relayed anything about the procedure? Haven't you planned anything at all in the past few days? I don't see the need to remind you this is the daisaiin's **life** we are talking about here, miko," the Head of the Police Department said stonily, brows frowning. "I cannot say I approve of this council's will to accept the help of such a young and obviously untrained **girl** as you are. This is no child's play." So condescending, so self-righteous in his uncalled accusation. Where the Hell did he get off? He reminded Kagome of a certain someone she'd met today.

There was a silent, uncomfortable pause.

Kagome's left eye was twitching. She could have just kicked him for that.

Instead, she decided to be indignant.

"Of course it isn't!" She bit out, stiffly. How dare he even think she was fooling around in something this important! What did he think she had been doing for the past three hundred and sixty seconds of her day? Having a bloody tea-party with the Sea God!

"We haven't been playing around, as you so blatantly put it, Yoshitoshi-**san**." She spat the last word, purposely unacknowledging his higher rank. If he wanted to downplay her, she would downplay him twice as hard. "We haven't had much time to sit and talk it over. The plan to use the dragon's scale came to Sango-san's mind only yesterday, and we set off to retreive it early this very morning. When we finished, we came straight back here." Kagome crossed her arms, blue-gray eyes set on the man's with obvious resentment for his censure. If looks could kill, only a smoking puddle of the Police Chief would remain standing in his place. "We've been fighting a huge mass of a dragon kami for more than six hours all alone, sir, excuse us for not having had discussed the plan as we ran around the beach trying to avoid being mauled to death!" She finished, barely resisting the urge to make a rude gesture at him.

Kagome heard them all take a deep breath.

On the corner, the servant flinched, gasped and covered his mouth in mortified bewilderment.

Yoshitoshi's right eye twitched. Twice.

Kagome stood her ground, back straight, not regretting one single word that had left her mouth. _(He deserves it anyway. Pompous, know-it-all baka that he is!)_

The rest of the Court still stared at her, some beginning to mutter about mannerless youth these days. Yoshitoshi frowned more pronouncedly and countered with a leveled, no-nonsense tone, "I understand you have been busy, **child**. Don't presume to enlighten me on matters I am very well informed. But we cannot leave anything to chance here, much is at stake," he moved his upper body forward, hands and elbows resting on the table, eyes afire. "We cannot allow you to experiment on our daisaiin just because one of you had a hunch. Don't mistake me, girl, I won't be so easily dazzled or complacent to you lot just because you guard the Shikon Pearl."

Now **that** put a stop to noise altogether. Kagome felt as if she'd been slapped.

Voices were rising, some agreeing, others outraged by the man's mention of the Pearl. Kagome sat, wide eyed and mouth agape, staring.

"It's outstanding!"

"Indeed, I never agreed to have an outsider miko brought into this..."

"Me neither—"

"Yoshitoshi! How dare you utter the name of that accursed pearl!"

"...what an outrage this is! The Pearl mustn't be mentioned on a sacred place..."

"Please, please, let's all calm down," Mashimo ushered them, making appeasing gestures with his hands, but his voice was lost on the rampanging accusations flying back and forth throughout the table. "Please gentelmen--"

Then Shikimura said, "Silence."

And the voices quieted down.

_(O-kay, now that was weird.)_

Kagome looked up at him, shocked at his easyness. He was sitting across from her, grey eyes half-lidded, a small smile still on his lips. Amazing how a man as humanly unremarkable could be so darningly disturbing. Then again, there was something on him that just put you on edge. She was sure that one of his blank stares was bound to shut up even a rock concert.

Mashimo stared at him too, quietly, brows furrowed. He was probably thinking along the same lines as she.

"Gentlemen, please let me remind you all that the issue of the priestess' colaboration on this case has already been discussed and approved by this board. Let us not dwindle on it again. She's here with the Prime Minister's **and** mikado's acceptance, there's no room for more comments here."

To Kagome's further puzzlement, the Court members shifted in their places, embarrased and...was that a **blush** she was seeing on their faces? _(Kami, this day just keeps getting weirder and weirder by the minute...)_

Kagome was jerked from her musings when she heard the sudden, rapid thumps of feet on the wood planks of the floor, right outside the door. Raised voices, a boy imploring to be let in, the outside guards refusing sternly.

Mashimo raised from his position, asked abruptly. "What's happening? Who's there?"

The doors slid open with a crash. Kohaku stood there, flushed, panting, bowing repeatedly in apology for his sudden intrusion. "I...I'm looking for Higurashi!"

Kagome immediately stood up but was detained by Yoshitoshi's next question. "What's the meaning of this, taijiya? How dare you interrupt a secret meeting of the Court?"

Kagome scowled. Goodness, give the boy a break! Couldn't he see the poor guy was breathless. _(At least invite him in and give him a cup of tea...Kami! and he speaks of rudeness.)_ So much for playing the charming host, then.

"I'm-I'm sorry! My sister says Kagome is needed on the daisaiin's room. She says—she says everything is ready."

"Higurashi-san, what's he talking about?" Ueda asked, as all eyes turned to her.

She wanted to shrug, to tell them she was just as clueless as they were, but was saved by Kohaku himself whom rushed to explain. "Ane-ue finished the potion, we can go inside the great priestess' dreams now. But we need Kagome!" He was moving from one foot to the other, restless, biting his lips, still bowing everytime one of the men fixed their eyes on him.

Kagome started to move forward, her mind dwaddling off. _(Compared to him,_ _my brother is a mannerless monster.)_

But then what the boy said registered on her mind and she tripped on an invisible crease on the floor, almost falling, one arm windmilling to keep her balance. "What! The potion is ready? You mean, she **finished** it!" _(How! When! Why did you let me locked up here while you guys had all the esoteric fun!)_

"Hai, hai." Kohaku nodded quickly, a small, proud grin now blooming on his face.

Someone behind Kagome punched the table. She jumped slightly and whirled round, eyes not at all surprised to see Yoshitoshi leaning with closed fists over the dark surface of the table, black eyes dangerously slitted. "Who commanded that? Who approved the making of this...this **potion**!"

"A...anou," Kohaku blushed intensely and then paled to sheet-whiteness when he saw the other men shaking their heads and frowning in dissapproval. "My—my sister... we—we thought we could start..."

"You **thought**! You mean to tell me you children went ahead and began brewing magic inside the daisaiin's chamber, a sacred, Holy place! Without having consulted with your superiors first!" The man spat out, cheeks reddened, creases of outrage forming on his forehead and under his eyes.

The others began asserting with him like a bunch of trained robots.

"Yes, yes, no magic is authorized inside our Lady's chamber! It's--"

"It's an outrage, that's what it is! Coming here and doing as you please without first consulting us—"

"Indeed! The liberties they have taken!"

"Where is your sister, taijiya? Let's see what she's up to with such a behaviour as this," Yoshitoshi finished, the others still commenting at his back like a flock of talking parrots. He stood up abruptly and stalked towards the boy –who wisely took some steps back-, passed him and was out of the doors in a minute to the hall and from there to the outside garden. The others were following him, only Mashimo, Shikimura and Kagome remaining still in the room.

The first stood massaging his forehead with circular motions, eyes closed. He was renown for being a just, patient man, but now he appeared to be on the brink of screaming some full blasted obcenities. But he wasn't going to. Not aloud, at least. He was, after all, the Head Director of the Imperial Court and had served the Royal Family for more than thirty years. He knew the public protocol expected of him by heart. He put his previously removed glasses back on very, very gently and then proceeded to _mentally_ trace and curse every single one of his peers like no political top notch would ever do. He cursed them up, down and sideways. He surveyed everyman's habit, personality, lineage and their place in the human race. Finally, he sighed in resignation. Such bloody idiots, the lot of them.

Shikimura Ryoei on the other hand, sat, droopy eyes grey and unreadeable. He was drowning his tea in graceful gulps and then stood up slowly, like a cat unraveling after a long nap. His face had a small, lazy smile playing on his lips. Idiots, indeed. In his mind, he was smiling too.

Kagome just stood like a petrified fish, gaping. In her mind...well, God only knows what was on her mind right then. Probably a zillion of meaningless thoughts and severed connections between one idea and the other (i.e. what happened to her everytime she tried to make sense of a situation and came up discovering reality was just a jumble of undecipherable crap.)

"Higurashi-san?" came Mashimo overly calm voice.

She snapped out of her reverie. "Wha-? Huh?" she said, blinking and focusing on the man's tired face.

"I believe we should go, too. They're expecting you, after all."

"Oh...Oh! right, yes." She stopped, blushing. She made some vague gestures with her hand towards the door, eyes on the floorboards "Ehrmm...could you like, go ahead. I sort of get lost easily..."

"Of course," he said politely, not remarking on how stupid that was. "Are you coming too, Ryoei-san?"

The other man was meticulously dusting his robes off, his quaint smile jarring on Kagome's –as well as Mashimo's- nerves. "I'll be there in a minute. You go ahead."

-------------------

Five minutes later, on the stuffed, rather poorly ventilated bedroom of the Child Pristess, one huntess Sango was praying to all the Raijin-ten she could think of for patience.

She knelt amidst a disarray of vials, pots, powders and magical spices which she took from Kagome's backpack –now lying like a yellowed cloth monstruosity on a corner-, slowly dabbing the perspirated forehead of the little girl in front of her with a cold cloth, face scowling as she heard the approaching sound of many wooden sandals and classy shoes making their angry way towards her. _(Damn that Kohaku! I send him to get the miko and he brings the entire board of directors... sigh Ten-no-Kami give me the patience not to hurl my boomerang at them inside the goshintai...)_

She was so eager to get this done, to finally get back home to help her father locate that devil-spawned hanyou that could shift faces, that any minor distraction was jarring on her sanity. Already this case which she had planned on solving immediately had taken two full days out of her tied up schedule. _(Last time I was home, chichi-ue said he was moving the clan to Matsudo were the Murakami family lives. He suspects the Shape-shifter is there, manipulating the soul of Gorou Murakami's son but I can't go with them unless I get this finished right now!)_

She sighed.

_( Dammit, Kagome, where are--)_

Just then the doors drew open, the burly, red-faced form of the Head of the police force barging in, an array of angry looking men rearing him.

Yoshitoshi started opening his mouth to spat some hateful accusation when Sango stood up and pointed a finger at him. "How dare you come in here like a flock of angry demons!" she demanded "What's the meaning of this?"

Yoshitoshi stopped, mouth agape, left eye spasming imperceptibly. "Wha-! Y—**You**!" he managed to say at last. "How dare you talk to me in that preposterous manner!"

Sango was unperturbed. She might be hurt and rugged looking, but no-one messed with the taijiya's clan heir. "I will speak to you as _your_ manner befits it. You are being noisy and downright rude," she huffed, crossing her arms, seeming not to care that her previous finger pointing had also been rather rude. Instead, she decided to chide them. "And bow in respect, this is your mistress' sick-rooms."

There was a pause. She gave them The Look.

Someone at the back coffed. Then came the shuffling of many heads bowing. Yes, she could be as intimidating as any other when she wished to.

Yoshitoshi remained upright. "Now listen here, girl, I will not be s—"

"Where is Kagome?" Sango plunged on carelessly, scanning the small, rather embarrassed looking crowd.

Yoshitoshi was seeing red. "Answer me girl! Who approved of you being he—"

"Ehrmm...She is not here yet, taijiya-sama," Ueda replied slowly, eyes focused of the Police commander's now rather **pronounced** eye-tick.

"Do not interrupt me when I am talk—"

"I'm here!" came the sudden response from a panting, huffing Kagome that was leaning against one of the carved door's edge. "Sorry 'bout the delay."

Yoshitoshi was now seeing purple. "I cannot believe the disrespect I am being sub—"

"Now, now, Kochii-san. There's no need for such anger," came Mashimo's voice from behind Kagome. The men parted to allow them way in, Kagome padding directly towards the lying, moaning child, her features worried. She bowed deeply and made a mental prayer for her recovery. "How is she, Sango-san?"

Sango shrugged. "Pretty much the same. Hasn't changed that much since yesterday. She's got a fever now, too." Sango eyed the child, the yellowish, papery skin of her face, the small, opened mouth that was so laborously gasping for breath. "I think she might be fading..."

Kagome gasped –just like half the men in the room-and covered her mouth. "You—you mean..."

Sango nodded. She moved to a small cherry wood stand to the left and picked up a little blue tinged pot. She carried it back to Kagome and knelt next to her, beginning to explain how they would go about using the potion.

As the men were being ushered out by a nervous Tatakai, the raised voices of an abashed Yoshitashi and a drained out Mashimo were heard distinctly clear coming from the outside.

"I cannot believe you are allowing this, Director! It's is dangerous! Preposterous! Our Lady can very well perish in the hands of those—those foolish children!"

"Please, Kochii-san, calm down. They are experienced and they're the best there are in their fields; I'm sure everything will turn out alright in the end."

"But the daisaiin--"

"Kochii-san, please understand..."

A meaningful pause. A sigh. "They're our last hope."

Finally the doors were closed, and a much welcome silence permeated the place.

"So," Kagome said slowly, trying to override the drumming of her heart on her ears as that last phrase echoed in her skull. "I have to drink this and I have to feel for her aura, like a normal soul-connection, right?"

"Hai, pretty much. After that you'll feel..." Sango scratched her head, mildly puzzled. "Actually, I don't know what you'll feel exactly but you will probably begin to see images, or hear the voices on her head being projected to you..."

Kagome cocked her head, dubious. "Like in a movie?"

Sango smiled slightly. "Yeah, I s'ppose." She dabbed the child's forehead again. "Try to focus on what she is feeling, where is her pain located. See if you can rummage through her memories to get a view of what happened that day, who attacked her and, above all else, what exactly did that person **do**. We can work from there, then."

Kagome swished the cup around lightly in her hands, making the liquid in it stir. She brooded. "Shouldn't there be like, a ceremony or something? You know... to secure my success or whatever?" Yes, ok, _maybe_ she did pay some attention to her grandfather's greatly obssessed teachings on how to correctly perform holy rites. And _maybe_ she was starting to believe in them, too. Or _maybe_ she was just being paranoid.

_(Most definetely the latter...)_

Sango looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Kagome bit her lip. "Well, it's just that...Oh, I don't know, we went through so much trouble to get the eye and all and now I just had to drink this...stuff and puff! That's it." She shrugged. "It's seems too easy, that's all." _(...and boy do I know that things are never as easy as they look...At least, not for me anyway.)_

"Well, now that you mention it..." the huntress drawled slowly, head cocked, knowing eyes gazing sideways at the now despirited young miko. "There **is** an ancient rite that was used to be performed in cases such as this..."

_(Yep. I knew it. There is a-always a 'but'.) _

"But it's not truly necessary. I mean, the important thing is only drinking the potion and connecting auras, that's all. Are you sure you wanna know?"

"Of course! Maybe there is something I can use to...protect myself."

"I don't think—"

"Oh, please Sango-san, just tell me!" She even managed a small pout.

Sango waved one hand in the air carelessly. "Oh, it's nothing much, really. It's just a five-steps ceremony dating from the..uhmm...let's see...160's I believe, where the leading priestess will try to communicate with the Gods of Protection to safeguard her journey within another's soul by first, petitioning through a three-days-long vocal chant –without pausing for water or food, mind you," Sango added in her full blown scholar-mode.

Kagome's eyes began to widen to alien saucer proportions.

Sango just smiled.

"Yes, well, in the second stage the priestess is garmented with the traditional twnety layered kimono –some, let's see, 60 to 70 pounds of flowing silk, more or less- and she has to dance around the shrine's compound for the Gods from sunrise to sunset..."

"...Don't tell me, without stopping for breath, right?" Kagome said in a thread-like tenor.

Sango smiled. "Exactly. On the fifth day, the priestess will perform the 'ritual exposure of her flesh'" –There came a distinct choke from Kagome at this bit- "where she will attempt to lure the God's sympathy by allowing her virginal body to be tainted by the panting looks of a hundred lustful males," Sango continued all professionally, eyes closed and nodding for serious emphasis.

Kagome's left eye began to twitch. There was a huge ball of..._ something_ –probably incredulity- blocking the passage of air on her throat, and the blood that was supposed to flow through to her head had long ago lodged itself on the vecinity of her feet.

"On the fourth stage, the priestess is required to willingly leap into a burning pyre or she can choose another to do this step as, well, if she's the one that has to go into the sick person's soul, she won't be able to do it if she's all burnt up and dead, right? So, well, on the seventh day-and mind you, I personally think this is the easiest part...

"...she has to pee a mirror."

By this time, Kagome was just simply kneelin upright, eyes-half lidded, face scrunched. "P—pee a mirror?"

"Well, yes. It is a way of defiling your own image or something... It's like showing the Gods you are so commited to your cause that you don't care for your pride or womanly beauty. I think. I can never remember that last bit..." and Sango had the gall of seeming to be deeply pondering this!

A pause.

"It's...a joke, right?"

Sango was sincerely taken aback. "Of course not! It's an ancestral tradition passed from generation to generation of priests and warriors through ti—"

Kagome put her hands over her ears to cover the droning of the other's voice and exploded. "Ok, ok, fine! I got it! I'll just drink it and be done with it, ok? No rite, no safeguarding, no peeing mirrors, no nothing. I just don't want to know anymore, thank you!"

Sango shrugged. "Told you so." She placed a hand on Kagome's shoulder. "Now, could you please take that potion already and be done with it? I have other things to do."

"Ok, ok, jeez." She looked at the depths of the small pot as if waiting for a signal. The liquid swiveled inside, a clear blue. Sighing, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, murmured "Kanpai!" and drowned it in one gulp.

Sango stared at her fixedly, expectant.

Kagome lowered the pot to her lap, cleared her throat. Waited. Then turned her head and addressed her companion, "This is disgusting. It tastes like fish-bowl water!"

Sango sagged in her place, tension easing out of her back. Laughed. "Yes, well, it does come from a sea Kami..." She passed a hand through her hair. "So, feel any different?"

Kagome cocked her head, studied her hands and knees. "No, actually. I just feel utterly sick on the stomach. Should I feel different?"

"I would suppose... I've never done this before, but according to what I've read there should be light and magic surrounding you, you know," she shrugged. "All that firework dazzle."

"I don't feel like shooting comets out of my hands, if that's what you mean," Kagome replied mildly. She crawled to sit nearer to the child, placed both her hands hovering down over her forehead –palms down-, began chanting softly.

Sango felt the rise of Kagome's spirit-aura. There was no light or blurry mist whatsoever _(Damn exaggerated scrolls!)_, but the air was beginning to charge as if preparing for a summer storm. She stared attently as the other girl's hands hovered over Kajiura-redi's now muted face, completely still, fingers parted. Kagome's chant began to slowly recede, to fade, her shoulders sagging, face relaxing...

...but then there came a sizzle, a spicy tinge in the quiet air of the room. Kagome was tensing again, brows furrowed.

Sango, worried, tried to stand up and approach her, when suddenly Kagome fell forward, limp...

...into the open arms of a now completely awake grand priestess.

Sango gasped and fell back on her rear, shocked.

The child sat up with half of Kagome in her little arms, red hair fanning round her shoulders and spilling over the golden silk of her chihaya. Her eyes were burgundy red, deep. Impassive.

"Mi-milady...?" Sango hushed, stunned.

The child didn't respond nor turned to her. She moved a hand up to Kagome's white, deadly-looking face and caressed her cheek. "At last you came. But it is too late now, Kikyou..." she murmured softly, strangely, as if talking to her favourite hina.

A little girl with her favourite doll.

The picture in front of her was so sudden and disturbing, that Sango just sat sprawled on the floor, paralized. Entranced.

Kajiura blinked, eyes red and calm. She was moving her hand to Kagome's hip, right where her old scar was located, little fingers appearing from under the recesses of her sleeve spreading, not touching the miko's dirty shirt.

The air grew heavy, stuffy. Ominious. Sango choked on it, stretched her arm out.

A pulse.

Kajiura retreated her small hand abruptly, now fisted, as if pulling an invisible thread.

A pulse.

Light, shining, blinding...

...something bursting out from Kagome's flesh like a bullet.

No blood. No pain. Just the child's smile as she looked up, Kagome's dead stillness, and Sango's mind screaming.

The Shikon Pearl hovering like a small star over their heads.

--------------------

Oh, and, by the way, those things I wrote about the protecting ritual are actually true! Isn't that amazing? I read it a couple of months ago, in a book called: "Enduring Identities: the guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan" when I was doing a paper for Oriental History. The ritual is to ask the Gods for their protection in times of drought or something, so I modified it a bit to suit it here (I just **had** to, I mean, it's awesome!). So, hope you'd enjoyed it, too.

Glossary of Japanese words:

Senkensha: seer

Zojoji no Jinja: The Zojoji Temple

Ohagi: little balls made of sweetened rice

Kodai buumu: interest in the past, a person's history.

Nishi-kei: Western Lord

Ryou-ue: Higher Dragon

Koma-inu: a pair of statues, ussually dogs, that face each other within the temple's ground. They serve as protection against evil spirits and they're rumoured to attack any who dare enter a temple with bad intentions.

Haiden: s shrine's lower hall of worship. Also, the place were a shrine's meetings take place.

Saiin: main priestess

Shoten: male clergy

Raijin-ten: thunder God, protector of warriors.

Ten-no-Kami: Heavenly Gods

Goshintai: "the most sacred place"

Kanpai: the japanese equivalent for "Cheers!"

Hina: a she-doll.

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**Appreciations and review answers:**

My most humbles thanks to ChildlikeEmpress; Media; Nakshatra; Reiko; Hoku-chan; Flame Ivy Moon; Psychotic priestess; Seshaddict; and all the others who might be reading under the guise of anonymous followers!

Now for the question answering:

Media: Sorry about the delay, terrible attitude on my part, I know, but well, back from the dead as they say. Anyway, thanks for following this story, and I promise, no more 6-months-long-lapsus from my part. )

Nakshatra: Yay! You really follow my story? Well, thanks! Umm…you asked if I was Japanese or was studying it, it's the latter, actually. I've been studying it for two years now, and truly, I love it. It's one of the reasons why I started writing this, to practice my history and culture background. Thanks for reading this and all your comments are always welcome.

Reiko: No! It cannot be! You have unraveled my deep dark secret! (woes be) Jejeje…yes, indeed I am using the name of a singer for the daisaiin's. Why? Not quite sure, actually. Most of the new characters in my stories have the names of Japanese actors or singers, I think it's because I like how they sound….Besides, most of the Japanese names have some sort of meaning, you know, so I don't feel like inventing them or mixing them in case I'm somehow cursing someone or something –one of my greatest fears.

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C.o.m.t.e.s.s.a


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